The Devil is in the Details
by kamorge0
Summary: Stuck? Dissatisfied? Maybe you're just a little bereft or forlorn. What would you do to put that behind you? What would you do to turn to a new chapter in the book of your life? Would you make a deal?
1. Chapter 1

**_Greetings and salutations! We're almost at the spookiest day of the year and I've kind of... died, haven't I? Or so you thought! October 31st, the day of free candy and slutty-everything marks the day of my return! A doubleshot of F &C (35-40 page chapter) will be released patron exclusive while everyone will be getting the next chapter of OFNT. ~Sixty pages of new material coming to you on halloween. SpOoOoky!_**

 ** _Oh... and this. I got into a very, VERY lengthy discussion on what makes a good isekai/self-insert intro. After bludgeoning my poor companion until he was black and blue and largely no longer talking to me, I decided to have a good time by writing one. Not something I'm necessarily going to continue because of my two current ongoing stories (which I can hardly handle as is) but a fun start of what could be an epic adventure._**

 ** _And as per the Halloween spirit, it has the spookiest thing of all. Deprrreeeeesssiooonnn. SpOoOoOoOoky!_**

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

 **The Deal**

Some people say that evil is a matter of perspective. History is written by the victors, so wouldn't it be easy to cast the heroes of one story as the villains of another? I agree with that much of the argument. It starts to fall apart for me when that premise gets stretched to encapsulating evil in its entirety. The idea that all morality is subjective — a popular belief nowadays — and that it is therefore impossible for one to judge objective right is all the rage.

Well, at least until someone touting that philosophy runs into someone who disagrees with them. Then that school of thought gets thrown in the waste bin. Frankly, I think that's where it belongs. Evil can be subjective. That's true.

But it can also be objective. I see proof of that every day.

"Goddamn PRISM," I swear furiously at the computer screen. The familiar lockout screen of the ransomware flashes before I immediately shut the computer down. I know what comes next in that boot sequence and having verified the problem I had no desire to see it again.

"Nooooooaaaaaaaaaaggghh!" My coworker's protest degenerates into a feral groan of frustration not six feet away from me. "Please for the love of god tell me management has sorted this out by now?"

"Yeah, they did," I look to my right and smile at my coworker. He heaves a sigh of mighty relief. "They also brokered peace in the middle east and solved faster-than-light travel. Oh, and you got a raise."

"Ass. I was willing to believe your crap out of sheer desperation until you went and shattered my suspension of disbelief. FTL is one thing, but a raise? Ha!"

A snort of laughter is all the response I give before turning my focus back to the bench. More of a colloquial term than anything, the bench was a thirty foot counter. We lined up computers on said bench and would pace back and forth like eccentrics as we started a process on one only to pick up where a process had finished on another. Management had decided that IT work would be handled more efficiently if we were on our feet for our entire shift. The idea was that if we were sitting we'd be more likely to focus on one machine out of a simple desire not to move.

Which they were right about, damn them.

The two of us work back-of-house IT. Front faces would interact with customers and check things in and we'd fix 'em. Computers, phones, the occasional VCR. Wasn't much on the list that we wouldn't try our hands at. That was primarily because the customer-facing employees had a pretty high turnover and the replacements management hired were ignorant as a fucking rule. There were certain things we could work on and those we couldn't and with all the random exceptions management made the newbies didn't know the difference. That meant a lot of time training them up to be competent only for them to quit because the job was the pits.

Can't say I blame 'em for that.

After booting the laptop into a file manager, I begin to check the system folders where I know PRISM is hiding. The company has a virus scanner that should take care of things like this. _Should_ is really the operative word there. The scanner did what it thought was removing all the traces of PRISM. Again, _thought_ being the operative word. The little bugger would hide in a variety of system folders and simply reinstall itself after a few boot cycles to assure that any IT working on it was well and truly gone.

Clever girl.

I'd respected the ransomwares for that when they first came out. A whole host of 'FBI viruses' had taken a Windows exploit by storm. They demanded payment, completely took over your system, and unlike many others could not be closed out of. The FBI viruses usually included some threat of legal action for some alleged crime. Some would even activate the webcam on a laptop to take a picture of the person using it just to spook 'em a little more.

I'd found it crafty and not particularly nefarious when they first came out. They were nowhere near as bad as encryption viruses — something I was thankful to them for — as they didn't brick your hard drive and all your data in it. I don't condone what is basically theft and exploitation and never have, but much like a jaded healthcare worker, I've seen too much of this crap to muster up much sympathy for the technological equivalent of a cold.

PRISM changed that. It was a special kind of ransomware. A special kind of evil.

"Jayyyyy…?" The way I say his name obviously implies a question.

With the number of times we've had to do this recently, the exact nature of the question isn't a mystery either. "No way, no how. I fielded the last one. You're up to bat."

I blow a raspberry and resign myself to my predictable fate. I turn away from the bench toward our back shelf. A variety of tools both diagnostic and mechanical are strewn across it with all the care of a teenager's clothes coating the floor. It didn't much matter. You could only spend so much of your life somewhere before you could find anything through any of the mess.

I wish I was lucky enough to be looking for a misplaced screwdriver. No, it's not a tool I'm reaching for. It's the phone. Picking the wireless off it's charging station I glance at a memo stuck to the wall half with electrical tape and then redone with duck tape once I'd gotten tired of it falling. Tacky though it looks, I was content the memo no longer fell. Verifying that the number on the paper matched the one of my memory more than anything, I start to dial the listed number.

"Hey…" Jay starts off hesitantly. I can see him reconsidering as soon as he does so. I wish he would. He doesn't. "I heard what happened… you okay?"

At this point, everyone at work had heard. I did my best to keep the emotional backlash of what happened from creeping into my work, but that couldn't stop the word of mouth from circulating through the workplace like poison.

I sigh, pausing right before I'd hit the talk button to start the call. "No."

That was it in a nutshell. I wasn't okay. Not even close. Jay was asking because looking at me was enough to make it hard to pretend otherwise, no matter how much we both wanted to.

"But what can you do?" I joke with a chuckle. "You should be happy. If I was in a better mood I would have fought you on taking this call so I wouldn't ruin it."

Jay's face crinkles as he gives me a sad smile. "Guess you're right. Better not look a gift horse in the mouth."

He's a good guy to say so. I can tell he doesn't give a damn whether or not it's making his life easier. He says so anyways so the topic can drop. I'm grateful for that. I don't want to spend any more time thinking about it than I already am.

I hit the talk button and the pre-dialed numbers beep by in quick succession. Shaking the thoughts from my head, I do what I can to focus on the dial tone and what was essentially a prepared speech at this point. As I'm waiting for someone to answer, John walks into the back.

Bald, white, and with an almost missionary-like appearance, John was our back-of-house lead. He'd liaise with management and difficult customers whenever was needed in an effort to keep the two of us doing our damn job. When not dealing with difficult customers or management, John had the distinguishment of being responsible for batting out some of the more antiquated technologies we got into the store. Simply put, he either worked on the VCRs and the like we got in or got to make the call to customers saying we couldn't do it. It was a damn hard job and the small pay bump was hardly worth the responsibility in my eyes.

John managed by having a not so slight cocaine addiction. He'd snort some before work, snort some on lunch, and then power through until he could get home and smoke a joint to mellow himself out.

That's pretty much what it took to work IT most days.

John sees I'm on the phone and whispers something to Jay. I tilt my ear in their direction because the human condition almost demands I try and make out what they're saying. Despite my focus, I still manage to fail at eavesdropping. More embarrassing than that was that I let my focus get sidetracked from where it actually should be.

"- Police Department. Can I help you?" A female voice asks with poorly concealed irritation. If she worked this job a manager would have talked to her about her tone.

I don't let it phase me. I get how annoying it can be to answer phones all day and then some idiot comes along and forgot he even dialed you. "Hi there. I'm calling for Officer Santana. Is he available?"

"Santana's out," The lady answered shortly. "I can forward you to his line and you can leave her a message."

I can hear the woman already pressing buttons to transfer me before I say it's okay. "Wait, wait, wait!" I raise my voice in an effort to stop her.

Mercifully, it works. "What?"

"I need to speak to someone directly and immediately. If Officer Santana isn't available can you pass me to someone who is?"

Spend enough time on the phone and you can read the body language of an annoyed person through the receiver. Gnashing teeth, tapping feet, drumming fingers. This piece of work decided she wanted to set a record and went three for three on the checklist of obvious annoyance signals.

"Please hold," she asked curtly. Then, instead of muting the microphone like a civilized person, I hear her cover it with her hand like an animal. As anyone with half a functioning cortex could tell you, it does little to mute anything. "BAKER!" She shouts. A few seconds pass before she speaks again at a more normal volume. "Phone."

Apparently that's what the PD considers a warm transfer. The scraping of the phone being passed across what I presume to be a desk is enough to make me pull the receiver another inch or so from my ear.

"This is Baker," A gruff man's voice comes through the line with a vaguely irate quality to it. Is everyone in our PD chronically annoyed to the point they feel the need to make it this obvious? Lucky for them that they _can_ express their discontent this transparently.

Must be nice.

"Hi, I'm an employee down at the CompFix off of 33rd and Lex. I was calling to inform you that we've had another case of the PRISM infection on the device of a client we're working on."

If my words sounded robotic and scripted that'd be because they are. Management decided that if we needed to interact with law enforcement regularly that such an arduity could not be trusted solely to us. I wish that meant they fielded these calls themselves, but no. It was enough to inspire them to make rules for us on how to do it without getting involved themselves. Par for the course of our management, really.

"Prism? Like the glass stuff?" The officer asks.

Years of IT have trained me to understand that he took the idea of prismatic refraction that glass can do and blanket it over the word prism without any real thought on my part. If you can't laugh at the way customer's remember or think of some things you'll be short-lived in this line of work. In this case, I don't have the luxury of breezing past the other party's ignorance to get the job done. I need to get this Baker up to speed.

"No, sir. PRISM is a ransomware that hijacks a computer system," I follow the preset dialogue laid out by my superiors. "It's installed in a Trojan-like fashion, meaning that what is displayed has no real bearing on the browsing habits of our client."

I'm annoyed at how stilted this sounds. I'm annoyed that I couldn't get Officer Santana and am now taking to this schmuck. I'm annoyed that my mind isn't on my work.

And yet what's said next makes me more annoyed at Officer Baker than any of those things. "Rigghhhht… Santana's case. You're the kiddie porn guys, aren't you?"

Is there a worse way to be remembered than 'the kiddie porn guys'? I'd never imagined, desired, nor actually belonged to such a demographic. To the extent of my knowledge, there isn't anyone who works here with such proclivities. Loathe as I am to admit it, the officer isn't entirely wrong either.

"PRISM is a ransomware that displays child pornographic content in order to scare and or shock people into paying the declared ransom," I grimace as I say it.

That's how I know objective evil. A hussle is one thing, but child exploitation? You find me a belief system that says that's okay and I'll expose them as an idiotic set of principles that should have died out back in the Bronze Age. Things like this are why I can't stomach people who say everything is subjective. Everything? Really?

PRISM being the piece of work that it is has made management declare a state of CYOA; Cover Your Own Ass. As it's their asses they're concerned about, we've been tasked with the lovely task of reporting any and all incidents of PRISM to the local authorities in an effort to make sure we don't get sued out of existence for being complicit in child exploitation.

Fucking fantastic.

"Thanks for the call," Baker replies boredly. It's tragic that a person could be bored with something like this. Then again, with how done I am with the whole scenario that's very much the pot calling the kettle black. "I'll report the incident to Officer Santana and have her get back to you. She has your number, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Thanks." The click of the line disconnecting comes after the much more jarring sound of the phone being slid across the desk again.

"I really wanna give the assholes who coded this shit a piece of my mind," Jay growled bitterly.

"It's pretty damn grim, I give you that," I answer almost apathetically. As morally outraged as I was the first time we saw PRISM, it's not something I have the energy or willpower for now.

"Good job staying on script," John congratulates me with a smile. I roll my eyes with the most insubordination I can muster and earn a chuckle out of him. "It's a pain in the ass, I know. Still, seeing it helps me tell management that you're all sticking to it."

"Yay…"

"Hey, it makes my life easier," John's eyes scanned down our very full bench. It's filled to bursting courtesy of my having called out the past few days for… personal reasons. "I know you're scheduled off the next two days — and you're fine to take them if you need them — but if you don't mind-"

"I can come in," I cut him off. No point in putting him through the act of begging when I'm sure he stuck up for me to a very irate manager due to my call outs. The tension holding John's body up almost disappears completely. "Try not to look too relieved. I may get a big head."

"Can't help it. You're doing me a huge favor."

"I call in sick and create a problem so I can then get some hero worship for solving it? I've never felt more American."

John laughed, but in a pitying way. It was pretty obvious he knew too and that was why he was giving me such an easy time. Super. At this rate the next customer who walked in would probably know all the details of my personal life.

"Anyways, did the police give you a case number?"

"Sounds like they're going to add it to the pile we've given Officer Santana and let her sort it out."

John nodded and walked back out to the front, rubbing his eyelids as he did so. He probably had to cover the days I took off. Something I knew was bad for his health. Functional user of hard drugs that he was, John often spent his days off not indulging in substance abuse. Covering me on his days off made it so he'd either be going on coke for two weeks straight or make the choice to lay off of it and let us all suffer. The drugs helped him cope with both the idiocy and insanity of our day-to-day. Depriving him of them…

I'd learned patience and stimulants had a more powerful correlation than I once believed.

"Hey, Tiger," Jay said now that it was only the two of us again. The fully serious way he said it and the fully serious way I accepted it was stupid in of itself. It had started as a ridiculous nickname because of how young I was when I started the job. Almost a decade later and he hadn't kicked the habit. Worse was how I began to respond to it in public. "Did you get the workflow started on the Horowitz computer?"

"Ezra? He brought it in saying it was running slow. I was going to call him tonight and tell him the whole tower needed to be replaced."

Jay glanced over to the area we'd designated for desktops waiting to be started. Ezra's computer sat there, predictably untouched. "Did you diagnose it?"

"Of course," I assure him. "It's an XP machine with a Pentium Three. Firing a round of buckshot into that thing would be the best service I could give it. Diagnosis finished."

"He wanted us to install some RAM."

"They all want us to install RAM!" I fumed exasperatedly. "Snake oil is more likely to cure cancer than RAM is to make that piece of shit run faster. Hell, the RAM itself is more likely to cure cancer if we melt it down and stick it in an IV than fix that computer."

Jay laughed a little more earnestly this time around. "If we didn't charge customers making poor decisions we wouldn't have jobs. Did we warn him it probably wouldn't do anything?"

I walk the few steps towards the desktop tower and scoop up the paper on top of it. I scan through the notes that were left before giving an unenthusiastic. "Yep."

"I'm pulling out the Trippi tower on port three. You can set it up there and start it on scans."

"It's pointleeeeeeess," I groan childishly. Jay doesn't look back or even say anything more. He knows I'll do it despite my griping.

I'll spend my time doing work that someone asked for yet doesn't need. My efforts will fix nothing. For all my efforts put towards accomplishing the request asked of me, I know it will be meaningless. Yet here I am, doing it anyways. What does that say about me? Probably nothing good.

Reality doesn't change. I need the money from this job to live. Food, clothing, what little entertainment I can now afford as a reprieve from this mundanity. Video Games, card games, and streaming service keep me on my computer even after I'm home from work. I've tried branching out to multiple hobbies… I haven't taken to them as I hoped.

In that sense I'm not dissimilar to John; spending my gains on a mental reset that allows me to continue on the path I'm walking no matter how little desire I have to walk it. I'm actively aware of that, it irritates me, and I still do nothing about it. While they may not fulfill me, they occupy my time. I've tried to fill the void between leaving work and arriving back arriving back known as a home life with as much simple stimulation as I can. As if the act of doing so could distract me from my lack of satisfaction with my life.

It doesn't. It can't. I do it regardless. My fervent wish is that one day I'll wake up with the motivation to stir my dormant self from this torpor — this mental decay eroding at my sense of self and worth. I know that motivation won't spring forth from nothing. Drive is like a rolling snowball; the longer you go at it the larger it becomes. I know this.

So why am I stuck?

* * *

My keyring jingles as I unlock the door to my house. My mind is hazy as I close it behind me, flipping the handle lock and sliding the bolt lock good measure.

"I'm ho-" I stop myself. The sound of my voice bounces off the walls and up the staircase to be heard by nothing and no one. I sigh and shake my head. "Right…"

I kick off my shoes haphazardly towards the shoe mat on my right. While mostly inside, the heels of my left shoe rest on the hardwood floor. The haphazardness of it is exacerbated by the two pairs of substantially smaller shoes pointed perfectly straight towards the wall. I can feel the substantially smaller running shoes and laced heels looking at my obtuse pair of loafers with disdain for their messiness. I don't bother to fix them as I make my way to the kitchen.

I loosen my tie as I look for something to eat. I take stock of my mostly barren pantry, the refrigerator filled with condiments and expired ingredients, and countertops littered with the remnants of meal preparation I've not yet bothered to clean. Knowing that my options are between eating out and steamed white rice I glance around for my rice cooker.

I find it in its usual spot on the counter, pop it open, and then see the remains of a 'meal' made some few nights ago. Its contents have the first spatterings of mold beginning its slow march. Knowing the mold will eventually succeed in its conquering of my food, I lift the pot of the pressure cooker from the electrical apparatus and carry it to the sink. Of course, as I'd left it, both sides of my impressively deep sink are filled with a tower of pots, pans, plates, bowls, and silverware that's architecture looks like what one might imagine a drunk toddler constructing out of Jenga blocks. I'll need to empty the contents of at least one side of the sink to get my bounty of white rice.

Exhausted physically from a day on my feet as well as being emotionally taxed to the breaking point, I decide it's not worth it. I'd rather just sleep and pick up breakfast on the way in tomorrow. I'll get to cleaning the kitchen tomorrow.

Yeah… tomorrow.

My room is nothing to be impressed about. Not unless you're someone riveted by how messy a living space can become by simple lack of maintenance. Two separate desks with two computers — both custom-built — stand vigil over the lonely space. Mine is tucked away into the left corner of the room furthest from the entry. Its presence invites me to play a game, watch a show, or at least do something. I decide that it's probably for the best to do at least one bit of leisure before I hit the hay.

The computer whirs quietly and my desktop background greets me within fifteen seconds. God bless solid states. A cursory browsing of my YouTube subscriptions shows nothing of particular note. A few videos look like they may be interesting without particularly pulling me in. I check for updates on stories I read to similar results. A flash of annoyance at the lack of things to do hits me before immediately fizzling out. It's not the fault of the content creators I'm so insufferably bored.

A quick glance through my overly lengthy Steam library has me throwing in the towel. Every game either fails to snare me with any allure, is something I've played five times over, or is one of the many co-op games littering the list. A glance to the battlestation on my right serves as a needless reminder that those too are off the menu.

I surrender. Lethargically clicking on the URL bar I press Y, down arrow, enter, and YouTube pops up once more. Putting on the video playlist I use to sleep I spin my chair and vacate it, turning the lights off before falling into the far right of my king-size bed. I probably only take up a fifth of the bed with how I've positioned myself — my body close to falling off the edge. While the thought to center myself crosses my mind the desire does not.

I've slept this way for years. Why would I change it now?

The energetic shouts, jokes, and songs of the edited videos playing through my speakers that might infuriate others provides sufficient white-noise for sleep to claim me fast. I'm one of those guys who could sleep through anything once they're out. The caveat to my fantastically uninterruptable sleep is that I don't fall asleep until I'm tired. That makes switching from closing shifts to opening shifts like I am tonight usually quite difficult. Fortunately, such hasn't been the case recently.

I'm always tired nowadays.

My eyes drift to the brightly lit monitor in one last vain attempt to find a reason to stay awake. Funny as watching him play Annie is, I've seen Stefan suffer through this video at least a hundred times. I make the conscious decision to close my eyes in an intentional effort to will the mental darkness of sleep to take me faster. Exhausted as I am, it mercifully obliges. The sound of my speakers gets further away and occupies a less present space in my mind.

And soon there is nothing but blackness, both of sight and mind.

Thank god.

I don't dream. I don't think. Right now there is nothing and no one as far as I'm concerned. I have no need to smile and I've no need for strength. This nothingness is honestly the most relaxing thing I can get now.

But… aren't I thinking? I don't really dream and I'm definitely asleep, so shouldn't I be enjoying that nothingness right now?

"My sincerest apologies for interrupting your intended state of being," A dulcet, deep, playful voice pierces through every thought like a well-sharpened arrow. "I am both afraid and delighted to tell you that we have something of no small import to discuss with one another."

I guess I am dreaming. Huh… that's new. I hardly dream in the best of times. To have one now? I'd stopped having dreams once I realized they could be controlled and manipulated into what I wanted them to be. The trick is to not doubt yourself when trying to do so. Once you realize you're dreaming and try to exert your authority over its contents the mind will look to have you fail. If you harbor doubts they will be fulfilled.

"Are you alright? That is quite the face you're making." The voice sounded again in question.

What a weird dream. It's completely auditory — no visuals to speak of. Being something of a psychology buff I can't figure out why my mind is choosing this dream either. The voice sounds calmly confident and in control. Is it an expression of how I once viewed myself versus how I view myself now? That sounds plausible.

"I do believe in giving someone three chances to respond before interpreting their silence as intentional. If you are ignoring me would you do me the courtesy of opening your eyes and saying so?"

"I'd rather not," I finally respond. "At this state of lucid dreaming, opening my eyes in a dream is more likely to wake myself up than anything else. I'd prefer not to have to try and get to sleep again," No matter how unarduous the process was.

"Oh? And have you ever thought that might be a self-fulfilling prophecy? Is it not your belief that such will happen that gives it influence over your life?"

Yeah, that sounds like something I'd have said in the past. Smug, confident, and most importantly, right. So it's a conversation with myself, then? That's an interesting dream. I wonder what I have to tell myself.

"Most likely. That it's my believing in it that makes it reality does not change that it _is_ reality."

"Hmmm," The voice hummed. "Are you then postulating that your preconceived notions create your reality?"

I try to nod, testing a theory.

"Would that mean that a person of religion and their belief in whatever god they do adore make that god real?"

That confirms that either the voice is me and I'm read my own mind, it is a creation of my imagination and thus shares my thoughts, or this dream is also visual in nature in my subconscious. I find myself in a catch-22 as I find this dream interesting enough to want to test opening my eyes to confirm its parameters. That same interest has me not wanting to push the envelope and risk waking from some of the most interesting conversations I've had in a while. Even if it is with myself.

I don't chance it and keep my eyes closed. "That depends on what you mean by real. Does it make a deity exist in real life? I would say no. However, their belief in a higher power would make them more likely to both dream and hallucinate a religious experience were their brain to be given sufficient stimuli."

"In short, you believe that beliefs can influence the behavior of one's body and how said body will interpret situations but will not have any larger influence on the outside world?"

I pause before giving what would have been an immediate answer. That question feels like bait. "I couldn't say that's true for all situations, but pertaining to our current conversation, yes."

The voice laughed heartily. "A safe answer if ever I've heard one given. Truly, much like myself, you are a man who chooses his words carefully. For that, you have my respect."

"I guess it's good to know I still subconsciously respect parts of myself," I wasn't exactly holding the highest opinion of myself recently. A dream composed of my own thoughts complimenting me was a nice little ego boost.

"Whether you do or do not have self-respect is something entirely your own business," The voice answered. Though something I might say to another person, it doesn't sound like something I'd say to myself. The words he chose struck me as a bit odd too. "I've not come to discuss your business- rather, not simply _your_ business. I was hoping that the two of us might go into a bit of mutual business, actually."

"Business?" I repeat back as a question, already tired of the word. "Why would I want to go into business with you?" It was me, right? I'm already my own partner for better or worse. Then again, I'm not exactly the picture of happiness here. Perhaps it is my subconscious suggesting an alternative? I can tell the voice is about to speak again, yet I stop it. "Forget I asked. What's your offer?"

"To some those questions would be very much the same," The voice responded. I can tell it's teasing me.

"The first asks the reason why I'd be interested in your offer. You could suggest that my lack of satisfaction is reason enough to take any offer. Not true, but something you could say. The second asks directly what you're offering me and not why I'd take it. I'd prefer to figure that out on my own, hence the edit."

I feel a smile and I can't tell if it's my own or the voice's. The more we talk, the less certain I am of what's happening.

"I am more than happy to oblige. However, although one should go into all aspects of life with eyes wide open, I do believe that applies doubly so to matters of business. I must be so brash as to insist that this conversation be conducted in accordance with that philosophy."

That cinched it. I'd never have taken so long to say something as simple as 'open your damn eyes'. Whoever this dream-voice was, it wasn't meant to be me. Psychologically speaking, my mind had to be suggesting this voice's persona to me for a reason if I was to be dreaming of it. Moving from there, I knew that its asking me to open my eyes must imply some sort of visual necessary for whatever point it was trying to make.

So I trusted what I was sure was my subconscious and opened my eyes.

"There, that's better," The voice almost purred. "I welcome you to my domain."

And an interesting domain it was. My first assessment had it pegged as a library due to the bookshelves lining the walls. Thick, leatherbound tomes with gilded pages ornately decorated one while another was entirely devoted to books bound with string and tanned hide. So interesting was the choice to sort books by aesthetic over topic that I didn't notice the bookcases formed a rectangular box. I sat at one end, back to the singular bookcase that composed one of the two small sides of the rectangle, and the voice had floated over the black and red checkered tile on the floor from the opposite end. Unlit candles were mounted from end to end on the thick joinings of the shelves. The only light in the room was a single lamp next to where I sat.

For a dream, everything looks incredibly detailed and in focus.

Save for the series of bookshelves overhead that comprised the ceiling, books seemingly suspended in place on their shelves.

"I'd be delighted to give you time to admire under a more normal circumstance. As such, I do regret to inform you that this particular instance is not one of my more normal dealings. Time is something of a factor in this case and I would be bereft could we not strike some sort of bargain within this window I've created for myself. Once more I must be so pedestrian as to insist we continue with our business."

The way he says that word and continues to say it niggles at my mind yet is ultimately drowned out by a greater curiosity. The voice — the man as my eyes can somewhat reveal to me — seated across from me looks incredibly far away and yet sounds no more than four feet from my face. All I can see of him is the golden and ornate feet of his chair, his polished and pristine black dress shoes, and the beginnings of a crimson pantleg striped with gold.

"Do forgive this impertinence of mine, but are you there? There are discussions to be had and I cannot perform a two-man show by my lonesome."

"Yeah, sorry about that," I apologize reflexively, a byproduct of years working with customers. "Now that my eyes are open, my question?"

The man smiled. I don't know how I could tell that without seeing his face… yet I knew it as a fact. "From what I've learned of you I do believe you are a man who values getting to the point. Much as I'm one for the scenic route myself, I will acquiesce with your desire. I am dreadfully disinterested with my current state of being and desire a decadent distraction on the double. I can tell that is something the two of us share a mind on. As two gentlemen desiring a change of pace, I propose a deal that will allow both of us a reprieve from this _mundanity_."

That one word hit me with everything my life had become. Dull, disinteresting drudgery without the desire for anything more. This conversation was a dream. I knew that. It was idiotic fantasy to use this dream to hope for anything more. But if it was possible…?

"I'd be interested in such a deal."

"Most splendiferous! I knew you would be willing to listen," The man coughed to clear his throat. "What I propose is thus;"

"I will find — and more to the point have found — a proper venue for both of us to enjoy ourselves. The two of us may revel as we will, but neither will be allowed to interfere with each other's revelries. We will work _closely_ with one another — and that is non-negotiable. And when all is said and done, I will promise that I've given you the most excellent opportunity to recapture the wonder you once held for life and living it. That is my guarantee."

I'm not so naive as to ignore the sirens blaring in my mind. I know more than a fair share about contracts and achieving one's own goals with them. There are many businesses that grow with one another through contract, yet there are possibly even more who treat them as a zero-sum game. I can't deny the allure of his proposal though, no matter how much it reeks of a devil's deal.

"And what would my end of this contract be?"

"Quite simple, really," The man assures me. "As I said prior, you shall not interfere with my revelry. I only have one other demand of you in exchange for all that I've offered. You must let me in."

"Why would you need that?" I ask. I try my best to keep my mind sharp and focused. "You are choosing the venue, as per your own statement, so why would you need my invitation?"

The man's laugh was like dark chocolate mixed in with amusement. "A fair question, to be sure. While I might be able to pick a place I lack the ability to travel there. I require an invitation from one willing partner in order to travel. You are in possession of a vehicle which I have not, and so I need your compliance in order to journey with you. Does that answer your question?"

It did. It did entirely. And somehow in doing so, it revealed nothing. It answered my question without providing a single detail. I didn't trust it as a statement and I didn't trust him for saying it.

"You said you needed me to 'let you in'. That's an odd choice of words."

"My apologies if you did find them disturbing," The man smiled. How did I know that? "It is due to my manner of speaking that I chose them. I need transportation and a vehicle to ferry me to the places and people where and whom I will do business with. I can assure you that my dealings will not harm you-"

I immediately interrupted him. "Can you assure me the results of those dealings won't subsequently harm me?"

The bawdy laughter that ensued was like the cork popping from shaken champagne. It was deep decadence crossing the piqued pleasure of a man whose pleasure was rarely piqued.

"No, I suppose I can't. I would not wish to harm you directly, yet I cannot promise no dealing of mine will impact you negatively. _This_ world's a big place, after all. Hard to say what will or won't inadvertently affect you," The man paused for but a moment before continuing, his voice smugly amused. "Would it satisfy you were I to add a clause that I would not harm you intentionally?"

I think about it. It takes me equally long to respond as it had for him to think of the offer. "No."

Plenty of things happened in life that people didn't mean to. Showing up late to work, missing a date, your car breaking down on a train track. Not meaning for something bad to happen didn't mean it wouldn't. I knew better than that.

"I'd instead ask that in addition to that, we share ramifications equally. Whatever I suffer through as a result of your dealings, so should you."

Some companies were founded under that exact premise of sink or swim. Founders couldn't sell meaningful amounts of stock or fall below a certain amount of ownership without expressed agreement from all those investors present at the time of the company's founding. It was an idea based on the understanding that everyone would prosper together, or everyone would fail. Tying your ship to someone else's was a great way to make sure they didn't try and make you sink.

Which was why his response surprised me. "I do happily accept that change to the agreement. Such was my intent in any case. I must have forgotten to vocalize it."

Did he really? Or was I missing something? I didn't know, wasn't sure. Right as I was about to review the verbatim of the contract again, a book fell from the shelf on the ceiling at the end where he'd sat. A bright white light shined through it like a beacon.

The man stood, and as he did the optical illusion of him being both far and close was over. He was inarguably close now. No more than two tiles each a foot long separated us.

And still, I couldn't see his face.

"You've made your concerns known and I've given you my offer. Do we have a deal?"

Another book fell from the ceiling cases, accentuating the urgency his previously placid voice now held.

"Hardly. There are far too many details to work out and you've been nothing if not vague about what exactly we'll be doing," I chuckled. Books continued to fall from the ceiling at an increasing rate. More and more light began to suffuse the shadowy room.

I wondered if one would reveal his face.

"I would indeed oblige in walking you through this under normal circumstances. However, as I informed you, this is a time-sensitive offer. I'd hoped for more time to explain it to you," He muttered, evident agitation in his voice.

"Sorry, I can't say yes," I shrugged.

The books had continued to fall on the furthest shelf until there were none left. Then, only when the last book had fallen, the shelf itself fell and that entire section of the room was bathed in that white light, expunging all the shadows with a hissing finale.

"Can't say yes, you can't say no!" The man spoke in fast, hurried words. His previous candor fast disappearing. "I am offering you a fresh start. A clean slate for you to re-etch the carving of your life onto. All I need is for you to let me in!"

"And I'm saying there's too much that could go wrong. I've made my fair share of uneven contracts before. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

A clean slate? God, I'd kill for one of those. What a tease of a dream.

The books were falling like rain at this point. The second shelf crashed to the floor with a resounding crack, the light bathing the wreckage and chasing the shadows towards me as it had before. Wait… were those shadows actually moving towards me?

"That makes no sense! What do you care if there is a modicum of risk? Fearing loss is for those who have capital left to lose!"

His words struck me like a mallet with the sound of another falling bookshelf serving to drive it home.

Was he right? Did I have nothing to lose? No… that wasn't even a question at this point. I'd lost it already. It wasn't a gamble if you knew you were going to win. That was something I'd said many times in the past.

It also wasn't a gamble if you had nothing to lose.

"A clean slate?" I asked, finally revealing the interest I'd been concealing from him and myself this entire time.

"Yes! A clean slate and a new adventure. I can guarantee excitement long past your appetite for it is fully whetted. All I need from you is to **let me in.** "

Another bookshelf crashed to the ground with a sound like a grenade going off. My ears were ringing as I ran over it one last time. The deal was too good for me. I had to be getting used somehow. I _knew_ I was getting used somehow. But did I care? Maybe he was right. Even if I got screwed over somehow, what did I have to lose?

"If we do this, we do it together," I remind him of my editation.

"Yes! Together!" He shouts his agreement as one more bookcase falls after emptying its contents onto the ground. The light blasts through brighter than I've ever seen light before. Part of the man's elbow is caught in it and I can see the fabric of his crimson suit smolder.

"Fine… I'll let you in," I give my consent. When did I stop treating this as a dream anyways? This was a fun mental exercise in my sleep. I can't be bothered to think about this anymore… real or not.

"Shake on it!" The man sticks his hand out, the remaining shadows that have been chased towards us congregating around his body, completely enshrouding everything but his outstretched hand from my view.

I look at his hand and wonder if I'm doing the right thing. As bad as my life is, I've dug my hole. The choices I made were mine and mine alone. Even if he can offer me a clean slate, do I deserve it?

"SHAKE ON IT!" The man bellows as the books begin to fall upon him.

Even if I don't deserve it can I keep doing what I'm doing?

That was the question that had me reach my hand out to his. He grabbed it forcefully — all his desire to make this deal clear in the strength of his grip. And at that moment as the bookshelf fell down to crush him…

I think I grabbed back.

The books and shelf stopped falling like some surreal painting on abstract reality. They floated formlessly in the air, unable to find the ground. The point our hands joined at felt hot, burning, even. And suddenly I feel a searing heat from his hand.

The shadows once cowed by the light explode from his body. Like a dark sludge, they lift the bookcases back up from the side opposite us and reconstruct the room section by section. Only taking seconds to rebuild and restock each fallen shelf, the unlit candles in the room blaze to life. Same as the light before it, the candles chase towards us as each section is rebuilt.

"From this moment forward, you and I shall fulfill the terms of our contract to one another. From this moment forward," The man repeated once more with slow emphasis. The final bookcase replaces itself and all the remaining candles in the room burst to life. I see his face.

"We have a deal."

It's my face.

And then, like a shutter being pulled, my vision blacks out. Unlike before, I'm desperately trying to open my eyes. I'm trying to pull the covers off my body so I can bolt out of my bed. No matter where I reach there's nothing I can grab. No matter how hard I try to open my eyes there's nothing I can see.

And then there is. Color and light assault my eyes with the stimuli I was so desperate for, except not in the way I was desperate for it. A field of reeded grass standing like wheat fills my sight with me lying at the top of a small hill overlooking it. My tight grip grabs grass and dirt so harshly that the cuticles on one of my fingers starts to bleed. It smells like outside, the breeze bowing down the grass feels like outside.

I am outside.

"Where… am I?" I ask the open emptiness. Is this some hyper-realistic dream? Is this some sort of sequel to what just happened? None of my knowledge of psychology can make any sense of-

 _You are in the jewelry box filled to bursting with untapped treasure I happened upon._ A familiar voice fills my head.

I balk. "W-where are you?"

 _What do you mean, 'where am I'? We made an agreement. I would provide the venue, you would provide the vehicle._

It hits me all at once. The exact words of the contract. More importantly, the exact meaning of his contract. Wherever I am, wherever _we_ are, he didn't need help getting there.

He needed someone to let him in.

 _I look forward to our continued collaboration._ The voice sounded from my head once more, smug amusement dripping off each and every word.

 _Partner._

* * *

 ** _Well, that was fun to write! Time to finish up the other works I've got in the oven for the spookiest of Halloween releases. Does this concept interest or appeal to any of you? Please, give me your thoughts. See you guys next time!_**


	2. Chapter 2

**_Greetings and salutations! Not what I expected to be releasing. That's for sure. After Old Fox kicked my ass up and down the court for a few more months, I've once again decided that I ought to write something. I'm not sure what this means for the future of OFNT that it keeps fighting me so hard whenever I try to write it, but I'll keep you posted._**

 ** _Onto the work at hand. Welcome to the second chapter of a pet project I didn't think I'd be writing a second chapter to. After spending four to six hours boarding it out, a friend and I found an interesting story to be told here. Don't have much to say about it besides that. The lack of tags is primarily due to not wanting to spoil anything as we're starting off rather ambiguously with the RWBYverse. For those impatient, expect our first big encounter next chapter._**

 ** _Enjoy!_**

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

 **A Small Problem**

While I'd say that adaptability is a strong suit of mine, I know there would be a line of people who'd disagree if I ever said it publicly. My argument in such a situation would be that enjoying something and being good at it are not as related for some people as it is for others. I enjoy developing a routine and keeping to it and I don't enjoy being jilted out of it because someone else hadn't had the foresight to plan ahead and prepare. That being said, if there was ever a situation that demanded I figure things out, I'd normally be able to flip my switch until the present predicament was dealt with.

Considering my current situation, I've decided that said switch desperately need be turned on and locked in that position until further notice.

The area I'm in is not familiar. And I can say that with certainty since I'd remember a view like this. I'm atop a tranquil hill with tall, reedy grass. Tall enough that I knew for certain that the area had to be unoccupied. Standing straight had it tickling right below my shoulders. With me standing a hair over six feet tall, that would make it close to five and change. I'd never seen it grow that tall before.

"Where the hell are we?"

And I mean the question rather literally. The grass surrounding me is so towering it forms a canopy I can hardly see through. I could hear the sound of a brook babbling further down near the base of the hill. The vibrations from the wings of surrounding insects hummed as an overtone. The sounds joined together to create something so perfect that it could have competed for the platonic form of nature.

It was… strange. Though I'm not exactly an appraiser, I did have a grasp on the land market. I'd been looking at houses for some time, dreaming of the day we might afford one.

Armed with that knowledge, I found it odd that such a cozy spot was so vacant. Even if it was remote, such idealesque plots usually found a buyer sooner or later. So why was it that I couldn't see any indication people had been here? Strange...

It was at this time _we_ wound our way back to my question. Now, a normal person passing by might have thought I was asking myself or had posed the question otherwise rhetorically. One who was more considerate might have accounted for the actuality that I was lost and was sincere with my question and sought to help me out of a dire strait. The way in which a person views things obviously influences their course of action.

And so it wouldn't surprise anyone that a clever person would likely have noted something entirely different than the considerate one. A clever person would have noticed my choice of noun implied multiple while I was here as a singular. But even someone clever would likely believe I had simply misspoken.

I had not.

 _I haven't the foggiest._ The deep and dulcet voice rumbles in my mind. _By virtue of this realm previously barring me from entry, I must confess that my familiarity with its landscape is unfortunately at the same level as yours… which is to say it is woefully none._

"Well isn't that just peachy?"

Now, while most people would have been a bit more alarmed at a voice in their head talking back to them, I couldn't say that I fell into the category. It wasn't some misplaced sense of invulnerability or an earned entitlement like bravery. I had hardly faced much real danger in my life that would require or enable me to develop such control. No, it was far more ordinary. A calm caused by understanding.

It is said that fear is a response to the unknown. While not knowing where the hell I was had me pretty spooked, the voice did not. I did have a mind for contracts. I knew better than most how easy it was to make deals without understanding them. Considering where I am and my complete lack of clue where this is, it's clear I hadn't understood the terms of this deal either. That made me quite the hypocrite. Still, I was left with a basic idea of how I'd erred.

"I hope you have some sort of plan," I say to my mysterious passenger. Better I focus on the task at hand than overthinking. "If your idea was for me to build a home on this hill of idyllic peace, spend the rest of my life keeping you company, and then die, you've misjudged your mark. I neither like you nor do I know how to build a house."

 _How frosty of you. Worry not, I hardly ever misjudge anyone to such a degree._ He pauses, humming. It was a deep sonorous sound. I could imagine his silhouette rapping a finger against a wooden surface. _You're handling this rather well._

"I'm not handling this at all," I reply with a snort that sparks a realization. Was it my imagination or did my voice sound higher? "If you get dropped into a slasher film you shouldn't waste your time wondering how it happened. Your first concern-"

 _Should be safety._

Hearing the entity mirror my thoughts in his deep voice was unsettling. The first tendrils of panic oozing out to grasp my heart. I don't know where I am. I don't know how I came to be here. Family, friends, and my home are all inaccessible. Have I been spirited away somehow? Or maybe...

I refuse to follow that thread any further and push forward with the hope that momentum will stymie the dread. I'd be better off acting in some way before indecision and doubt could paralyze me. Understanding could only calm me if I focus on things I understand. Following that logic, I decide to move from the hill I was on down to the large stream below.

It was a decision which immediately faces me with something I did not want to accept. I found a smile on my face and upon doing so sours it into a frown. Pathetic as it might have been, worrying about where I would sleep and how not to starve put me six rungs up on the ladder of happiness compared to my previous woes. I was enjoying this.

It would be more apt to say I was enjoying what it was not. A lack of suffering was a joy to the miserable and wretched. A circumstance that forces me to banish the existential and focus on the practical was itself a pleasure.

As much as it annoys me that I am happier, I knew better than to blame myself for how I felt. I don't believe in blaming people for what they feel. What defines a person is what they choose to do with those feelings. Not that the sentiment absolves me. Considering the deal I'd just made, thinking from that viewpoint damns my choice all the same.

"I suppose being lost is the start of any adventure, spiritual or otherwise."

 _Now that is the spirit!_

"Any suggestions on what to do next?"

Because frankly, I had no idea. My thoughts began to drift once more to questions of 'how?' before I force myself to change lanes and focus on what comes next. I need to focus on what I can do right now. I'd unpack all of this baggage as soon as I had my ducks in a row. Food and shelter are to be my concern moving forward.

 _I would imagine following this water upstream to be our best course. Whether it is a lake, river, or ocean that feeds into this brook, it matters not. People congregate at all three._

 _Ignoring the fact that most lakes would be home to campsites and little else._ I think to myself. A small experiment I couldn't stop myself from running right now.

And then there was silence.

 _Well? I do believe I have given you a heading. Did you wish to bask in the hillside a few moments longer?_

There's something to be said for the small mercies in life. I found comfort in the fact that my thoughts were my own.

It is that knowledge that raises my morale. "I wouldn't say no to some basking any other time," I chuckled as I started to rise. "But you're right. I should probably try and find somewhere to put my head down."

The mere act of stepping up was enough to tell me I should have paid better attention to my instincts. I'd thought that niggling at the back of my mind was a response to my present predicament. I'd felt it again when I spoke. And I felt it once more when I rose to my feet, took a few steps, and then immediately trip forward down the hill.

I'm a tall man. More pertinent to this tumble was the fact that I'm also a large man. Having once been anorexically thin, I can say there is something a skinny man doesn't understand about being fat. You live with a certain amount of caution when you are large. It is required of you.

A misstep when you're light is almost meaningless. You could fall on concrete and ninety-nine times out of a hundred come out with nothing worse than some scuffed palms. When you're light it's a lot easier

Being heavy is far different. Any time you fall it feels like the earth shakes beneath you. After you've taken a moment to get your bearings, you immediately assess how bad the damage is and where it's located. Because you're so much bigger, slower, and overall less coordinated, parts of your body you wouldn't have even thought of being injured might very well be out of commission. Because of that, a heavyset person with any desire to live avoided slipping at all costs. When so much mass is put into motion… well, let's just say that Sir Newton had a way with words.

So when I tripped and tumbled down the hillside, somersaulting feet-over-head a good seven times before coming to a stop, only to realize that I wasn't near death, that was the third and final straw.

The grass I'd previously taken note of was not five feet tall. Even if it was, my head would have poked out the top if I was standing. That thing that bothered me when I spoke? Unless I was working with a client my voice was more of the rumbling side of a baritone. And finally, there was the fall that should have killed me. Maybe that is an exaggeration. A fall like that might not have opened the door to death's realm, but it certainly would make me feel like I was peeking in through a crack.

Would and was are once more the words I'd intentionally chosen.

"So," I deadpan as I stare towards the few wispy white clouds in the otherwise blue sky. "Were you going to tell me, or did you figure it'd be funnier to wait until I'd confused the heck out of someone by talking like a grey-collar worker.

The voice chuckles. _I will admit to harboring hope for such an amusing scene to play out. More the pity I won't get to see it._

Brushing myself off, I walk very carefully towards the brook. When I arrive, I kneel down close enough to stick my face into the water. The careful way I do it — bending a single knee, slowly lowering my other to match it lest I lose my balance — is entirely unnecessary.

"Well," I sigh, shaking my head. "At the very least I suppose that is me."

Me when I was younger. Much younger. I look no older than twelve, possibly younger. My hair is the same color, though it was the lighter shade I'd had as a youth. As far as the reflective surface could reveal to me, I was unimpressive of height. Even more jarring than the loss of a good foot-and-change of height was losing more than a foot off my beltline. That explained my general clumsiness; I'm not used to maneuvering without the intentional purpose weight forces one to have.

There was one thing that hasn't changed. My eyes. They had sparkled like gemstones when I was a child, at least in the pictures I'd seen. Considering the youthful face I was staring at in the water, I expected to see those sparkling eyes staring back at me. No dice. I was greeted by a far more familiar sight. Greyed orbs of muted blue and grey. They were dull and discerning.

I give a resigned sigh. "Any particular reason I look like I'm… what? Ten? Maybe twelve?"

 _I do believe it to be somewhere in that range. And yes, there is a reason._

"Care to enlighten me?"

 _If I were to answer no?_

I scoff. "Not really shit I could do to force you, is there?"

To which he laughs. _Indeed there is not. Not that I mind telling you — it's quite meaningless._

"Oh?"

 _That may have been something of an overstatement. Meaningless to you at this time would be a bit more on the nose._

Curious as I am to what he means by that, I let it go. The sun is rising in the sky and I have no idea where the hell I am. Putting rationality over desire, I prioritize and decide to put deciphering his riddles a few rungs down on my to-do list.

Getting off my knees, I sit my tiny body down at the bank of the brook. I run my hand through the water to test my basic sensations. The fall certainly felt real. The way the cool water streams past my hand feels too detailed for a dream. But still... the situation is surreal enough that I'm continuing to look for some sort of proof to explain this away as some hyper-realistic hoax.

No such luck.

"Follow the river, you said?" I ask with a sigh. It's more way of verbally resigning myself to the drudgery of a long walk than an actual question.

He seems to pick up on that. _Now that is the spirit!_

* * *

For all the insanity that I find myself in, my first walk in this new body is blessedly uneventful. All the scenarios I could fathom involving a child wandering the countryside — idyllic as it was — ended rather poorly for the child. And so this silence is very much a case of 'no news is good news'. Sure enough, my passenger had been correct with his thinking. It has taken ten miles and three to four hours by my best guess to find the town we are searching for, but find it we have.

Immediately I'm worried that I've encountered a hurdle when the town itself is encased by towering wooden walls. As a curator of useless tidbits of knowledge, I'm fairly sure that it's called a palisade. I make my way from the stream and travel up a short rise to the road that leads to a single gate left wide open. From the distance I'm at it seems less like a town in the sense I'm accustomed to. Towns took up tens of square miles while this settlement was completely walled off by the wooden spikes. It was still sizable and imposing to be sure, but more in the way that I'd never seen a town enclosed like this.

Any worry I have concerning a guard interrogation proves to be pointless. The man stationed at the gate doesn't offer me any acknowledgment besides a lazy wave. No inspection, no passport check, nothing. I count my blessings and make my way into the town.

The first thing that hits me is the sight of the dwellings. Most roofs are thatched with only a few being properly shingled. The colors of the houses lack any uniformity. Green, grey, light-blue. Hell, there is even one painted bright turquoise. It hurts my eyes to look at it.

The road I'm walking on fits within the context of the houses. While I could see the framework of what had once been an asphalt road, calling it that now would be misleading. The road itself was mired with holes and breaks which had been filled with gravel. It looks like the people living here have put a high priority on maintaining the road as best they can without possessing the means or possibly money to repave it. I can't be sure which.

The town looks dated if I choose to be optimistic and run down should I not. It's more like a collective homestead than a civilized city. Is this an outpost? Maybe it's some village out of city borders. A mining town, maybe? The only time I'd seen roads this bad was far up north during a drive through western Canada. The harsh freezing and thawing ruined any roads they attempted to put down with annoying consistency, leading to many more dirt roads off anything but the main highways. That can't be it. The towering pines I'd seen before entering discounted climate as a possibility. Canadian trees are far more thin and anemic looking than the large firs I'd seen on my way here.

All these details may seem like pointless information — correction, they probably _are_ pointless information — but focusing on them gives me something my mind something that it can process right now. I've yet to address the elephant in the room and for the time being, I intend to keep it that way. I wouldn't generally suggest that people compartmentalize as I'm attempting to right now. I haven't accepted this as reality, yet the aching of my feet sure as hell felt real. It was best to focus on the situation as if it was happening.

"Better safe than sorry."

A lady in a plain red dress looks at me as I speak, wondering if I'm addressing her. It's a well-worn thing with a few home patches to extend what has surely been its already long life. I avert my eyes and move past her to assure her of the opposite. She lets me pass without any further examination.

I walk in silence for a time as I attempt to avoid any unwanted attention. Wandering the village without much sense of direction, I look for a street bench or some such where I can gather my thoughts. It doesn't take me more than thirty minutes to take every main road this place has to offer. I did pass a few eateries with seating areas, causing my stomach to growl and my hands to frisk my pockets. That I'd moved on instead of entering was answer enough to what results my search and rescue efforts for any spare-change held within my new clothes revealed. With a growling stomach, I resign myself to leaning up against a wall tucked between two buildings and hidden behind an electric pole with the hope that it would be enough to obfuscate my visage from oncoming traffic.

Collapsing against one of the buildings, I sink to the dirt below. The way my short legs hardly jut out from the wall makes me snort. I'm six foot and change, not this ridiculous short-stack height. I shouldn't even fit in this meager cubby created by the walls of the two buildings.

I sigh. My height shouldn't be my concern right now. I'm not sure _what_ my concern should be. Pragmatically I should probably make feeding my growling stomach my priority. As it stands, it's the only pressing issue. A few nights outside won't kill me. Lack of nourishment stands as the order of the day and I should deal with it. It is a need and my desire for knowledge is only a want at the moment.

But I know I wouldn't be here if I was the kind who'd shelve wants for needs. "Any chance you want to explain what's going on here?" I ask with an exasperated tone that does not match my prepubescent voice.

 _I do believe I have explained it._ His answer was as succinct as it was unhelpful as it was unacceptable. I needed more.

"I get that we're here because of the deal we've made. I'm asking where here is and why you wanted to be here."

It was a loaded question with a deliberately constructed purpose. If you're ever dealing with someone you don't trust, these are the kind of probes you should use to get a feel for who they are. Is it forthcoming or not? What kind of tone does he respond in? What motivations can I discern from that? Gathering my own thoughts, I notice how frequently I've been bouncing between calling this entity a 'he' and an 'it'. Using that as an example, it indicates that I'm not yet willing to assign humanity and therefore a need for human empathy towards my mysterious passenger.

In other words, I'm preparing to consider it an enemy.

For a few minutes, the only sound I hear is that of the somewhat busy streets. I've intentionally picked a place with a poor vantage point since it will make others as blind to me as I am to them. Even then, I see an occasional person walking past the sliver of the cobbled street I have vision of.

Every minute or so a singular person or small group passes. Sometimes a mother and her child. Others two talking friends, colleagues, or businessmen. The traffic is small and consistent. It made sense when I took into account that the entire town was built within the confines of the palisade. The question is why? If it wasn't for history books and fantasy stories I'd never have known the proper name of these spiked log walls. Had I time-traveled? No… the boy who just passed had been dicking around on his cellphone. So why did they have fortifications?

 _I am unsure._

The answer comes out of left field and catches me unprepared. Ready to start dissecting the details of my situation, I'd almost forgotten I'd asked him a question.

Surprising me even more, he continues to volunteer information. _I know of the two brothers who created this world, I knew this place existed, and I know little else._

"So we are in a different world…" The words fall off my lips numbly.

It is unbelievably believable. Believing yourself to be in a different dimension is usually a good indicator that your family should sign you up for the loony bin. Even with that, I don't believe myself to be crazy for thinking so. Because what are the alternatives? I was abducted from my bed by some stranger, placed in the body of a child, transported god knows where and had a voice implanted into my head that matched an incredibly lucid dream I had? Magic sounds less crazy than any rational explanation I can come up with.

And it's been said that any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic...

Having reaffirmed my commitment to the idea that focusing on how I came to be here as some blasted kid would be the epitome of pointless, I instead honed in on the more important part of what had been said. "Saying that you know little more implies that you still know more. I'd have it said."

There was another pause before the deep sound of his voice echoed from within my head. Words that I wouldn't understand or appreciate the severity of until much later. Four words that would have told me so much if I'd put together what they meant.

 _This time… is interesting._

* * *

To say I had questions right now would be like saying an ocean has water. Of course it does. Obviously. And yet I'd still shelved my insatiable curiosity to deal with a more pressing matter.

Hunger.

The pain in my belly had started to grow uncomfortable. It wasn't like I needed to deal with it immediately; a person can live without food for weeks on end. However, it's not like I have anything better to focus on right now. Unable to help myself, I'd peeked into the Pandora's box that is my situation. I know that wherever I am is far from home. For now, that's enough.

What I don't have enough of is height.

I'd estimate the body I'm in now to be no older than twelve. Possibly younger. I'm so short that my head doesn't clear the reception counter I'm standing in front of. Not able to attract the required attention through line of sight, I struggle to ring the service bell. There is a middle-aged lady in a dark navy-blue dress working the desk who should have noticed me walking in…

But she's been on her phone the entire time. Because of course she is.

My tiny hand slapping against the wood as I hop and grope around to try and ring the bell should have been enough to get her attention if she was paying the remotest bit of attention, which I'd already established she wasn't. Unable to reach my prize, I slump over towards one of the wooden tables behind me.

The table is small and square, one of many in the otherwise open space of a room. The walls are made of stone and the floors and tables both are constructs of wood. If the random assortment of square, circular, and rectangular tables were replaced a few oaken long tables to cut corridors through the room then it would look like a medieval tavern. An older looking man with a cable running from the wall to the phone-like device in his hand would have put a damper on the novel aesthetic, but close enough. He was the only other person here besides the woman behind the counter.

Working a customer service focused position for most of my life, there was something I'd learned about people and the human condition. Few things compelled people to action more than simple pettiness. I was reminded of this when, in my attempt to take a seat, I drag the wooden chair across the also wooden floor. The scraping noise rips the attention of the old man from his phone.

"What are ye doing here?" His raspy voice asks in a way that doesn't imply so much as boldly state he doesn't want me here. That he asked in English makes me want to heave a giant sigh of relief. Not knowing the language of the land would make things nigh impossible.

My hesitation caused by gratitude to the fates denies me my chance to answer before the woman behind the counter responds. "What are you on about now, George?"

"Some kid is bothering me."

I'm not sure what I could have been doing that annoyed him besides existing in his field of vision. I didn't get a chance to reply before the woman — whom this arguing had convinced me was surely his wife despite apparent age difference — fired back. "Ain't no kids bothering you no more, George. You scared em all away."

"And good riddance to em! Damn kids kept a comin and treating my place like their hangout. Using our wi-fi for their vidya games without buyin' a thing!"

"And whaddaya think those kids did? Hmmm? They went back and told their folks 'bout the mean old man who called Them 'a bunch o' little bastards'. Now ain't no one come through these doors for weeks cus if you!"

"Cuz o' me?! Maybe if ye could cook half as well as you flap yer trap we'd have a line of customers going out the doors!"

If I'd lived any other life and been in any other circumstance I'd have quietly excused myself and headed somewhere else. Work in customer service long enough and you'll acquire a taste for the vintages known as public meltdowns. Finding a way to laugh and enjoy as people lose their shit is likely a defense mechanism we service folk develop because of how damn often we have to see it. I also needed this place in particular. Of the very few places to room in this town, this one looked the most empty. If I'm to deal my way into a room, best to negotiate with those who had rooms to spare.

"I told ye time and again there's nuthin 'tween me and Matti."

"Mathilda!" The woman howls back. "Her husband passes and not three weeks later you're callin' her Matti!"

"Hello…" I jump in the instant she finishes speaking. My voice is a carefully struck balance between quiet and audible.

The woman who was still behind the counter jumped. "What the blazes?! You damn scared me half to dea…" Her voice trails off.

I don't understand what's going on initially. I'd already prepared to talk the both of them down and bring the room back to civility and somehow the lady simply looking at me did it for me. I'd been in this kind of situation a hundred times before and never once had a conflict escalated so rapidly. How the hell…?

 _Right._ I resist the urge to slap my face. _I'm a squirt._

Regardless of how beneficial it was right now, being treated like a child annoyed me in ways I couldn't quite express.

"I'm so sorry! I didn't realize you'd found our happy little home, kiddie," The woman's more coarse manner of speech was nowhere to be found as she pulled a full switch into sweet elderly lady mode. "The name's Donna. What can we here at the Shepherd's Rest do for you today?"

Her husband substantially less so. "I told ya the moment he walked in!"

Donna paid him no mind as she whipped herself away from the counter with such intensity that her long navy dress sliced through the air. As quick as she'd turned away, Donna turned back and hurried towards me. In her hand was a menu.

"Now here at Sheperd's Rest, we make all our food fresh to order. You let me know what you'll be wanting and I'll let you know right back how long it'll take to get ready."

Or in customer service speak. 'People complain about the wait for food all the time. I'm going to head that off right here so you aren't surprised about it and walk out before the food is finished without paying.'

You learn to read between the lines.

I take a look at the menu despite knowing I'm not going to be able to pay. It's also written in English. What a relief. The numbers and food are all recognizable as well. The only thing I'm not sure about is the little symbol next to the numbers I'm guessing indicate the price. Whatever it is, I'm hoping it's not equivalent to dollars. Thirteen bucks for a bowl of clam chowder? There've been muggers who wouldn't leave me feeling so robbed.

I want to gather information without playing into the fact that I look like a kid. I want to swing an offer for work into some food and maybe taking one of their spare rooms for the night. If I admit to not knowing what the money is, I'm guaranteed to be labeled as some uneducated orphan. That route then splits into either sympathy or rejection. I'm not willing to accept either.

I decide to be crafty. "Did you have any clam chowder? I'm not seeing it on the menu and I have a taste for it." I can see the disconnect forming between her first impressions of me and how I'm presently acting. There's nothing for it. I'm trying to have them take me seriously, after all.

The lady recovers quickly and nods excitedly. "Yes we do, deary," She leans over me from behind and scans the menu, pointing to it on the menu. "Thirteen lien might seem a bit pricey, but there ain't no one else make a chowder half as good as I do in this town."

Lien. That's one question out of the way. Two, actually. You don't head off a complaint about the price unless you're used to getting it. That puts lien something close to dollars. I nod and put on my best attempt at a contemplating face. My facial expressions tailored towards me being a man don't match my reality as a boy. As such, it takes Donna a few extra seconds to back off and give me the space to make a decision.

Obviously, I'm not making menu choices as she thinks I am. It's a far more problematic quandary. I've never gone into a restaurant without having the means to pay. How was I supposed to broach the subject of food for work? What work could I even do? They had no customers! If their business looked like this half the day it would be hemorrhaging money!

And then god delivered unto me one of those 'checkmate, atheists' moments. Something I'd heard so many times, in so many variants, and with such frequency that it was less an old friend visiting from out of town and more of a hemorrhoid I was forcibly reminded of any time I tried to sit down. Such was the constancy and agony of this particular sound.

I'd never been more grateful to hear it.

"Why don't this damn thing work like it's supposed ta!"

Donna glared at him balefully for interrupting while I restrained a grin. I jumped at the opportunity. "What's wrong?"

"Whaddaya mean what's wrong? I just said the damn scroll don't work!"

He actually hadn't said that. Was an app on his phone not scrolling properly? Was it universal or app-specific? There's a plethora of forms the problem could take and near as many lines to solve it. I start with my bread and butter.

"Can I see it?"

"Eh?" Both Donna and the old man intone in unison.

"The phone, can you show me the problem?"

The man eyes me like I've come out of an asylum. Usually not a good sign. "Do you not hear good, kid? I said my scroll DON'T WORK! And what do I need to show you for?"

Ho boy… he's one of those. Shifting gears slightly, I approach from a different angle. "I might be able to fix it for you if I can see what the problem is. Beats the bill of taking it into the shop, right?"

As soon as I plant the idea of a repair bill I'm in his head. His lips contort into a snarl and he starts to move like he's going to get up and pass it over to me. He stops, planting himself firmly in his chair and looks at me doubtfully.

"How do I know ye ain't gonna just steal it?"

As much as I don't like having my integrity insulted, it's a fair line of question. I wouldn't want to give my phone to a kid either. I need to reassure him and I know just the way to do it.

"Why don't you sit with me while I take a look at it? Can't sneak away if you don't take your eyes off me."

When dealing with paranoids your best bet is the metaphorical open-palmed show of hands to prove you have nothing to hide. If they don't trust what you'll do with your process, let them observe.

"... Fine. But watch it, brat. I got my eye on you."

Donna hovers by the side, uncertain of what to do with herself now that her husband has hijacked the interaction. I feel a pang of guilt for doing this to a fellow service worker. I stomach those emotions and accept the phone from an already reluctant looking man as he sits across from me at my small table. I place the phone on the table, stand, gently and respectfully relocate my chair so that I'm more adjacent to him than across, sit back down, and only then do I pick the phone back up. Now I can angle the phone in a way where we can both see it and I did so without ever giving him the impression I might steal it.

Stupid details like this make or break service interactions more often than they have any right to.

The phone itself is ridiculously thin. I'd consider it a design fault in most circumstances. Continuing the flow of things I don't understand, the phone doesn't show any signs of bending as I hold it despite it's near paper thickness. Looking at it, I'm not sure how one would begin taking it apart. The sides are more solid… are they projecting the image onto a blank display screen holographically?

Fucking space-age phone makes no sense and I volunteered to fix it. Swell.

"Can you show me what's not working with your scroll?"

I keep the question open-ended. I'd thought his scroll feature wasn't working at first. His reaction made me think I'm not understanding something. I'll phrase it using only his own words so he can interpret them how he wants.

"The damn thing keeps freezin on me."

IT has its own brand of tropes you learn to deal with. He says it's freezing. The only thing I've interpreted from that is that something doesn't work properly. I once got a call from a lady saying her email didn't work. One trip and a confusing conversation with said lady's secretary later, I found out the secretary was printing out the emails for her luddite boss. 'My email doesn't work' ended up being 'my printer is out of ink'.

Deal with that for a decade and you'll understand why spies trust easier than IT folk.

"I ain't doing anything different than normal!"

"I believe you. These things happen all the time for no real reason at all," I reassure him. "The people who make these should really do a better job."

The man who insofar has been nothing but hostile visibly relaxes. Blaming someone else proves that I don't believe him to be at fault. Since I'm not responsible for protecting the brand of these space phones, I'll gladly throw them under the bus to make my life easier.

"That's what I _been_ saying for years! But ain't no one listens to old Leo. Oh no."

"I feel ya," I nod my head emphatically. I didn't. Didn't much care too, either. What I wanted was Leo to be on my side. Common enemies helped that along. "Now Leo, can you show me what's going on with your scroll?"

The old man warmed even further when I used his name he'd let slip into conversation. I set the scroll on the table and angled it towards him while keeping it close enough that I can see the screen. Now that he's finally a willing participant the whole process can start moving forward.

"I donno what happened to it. Two, three weeks we ago it was workin' like I'd got it from the store. Now when I'm playin' my game it keeps on actin' up."

My brow twitches. The same man who complained about kids and their games is now whining that his own game doesn't work. Ironic.

I plaster on my best genial smile and repeat myself. "Try and make it happen right now so I can see it. If I can see it happen, it makes it easier to fix."

Leo gives me an obliging grunt before he starts to operate the device. All of my focus is brought to bear as I watch. The way the screen lights up and projects it's image forward in a slightly three-dimensional view is impossible for the over the counter tech I'm used to. I doubt Leo and Donna are swimming in it either. This futuristic tech is likely standard issue in this world.

I scold myself for letting my mind wander for that brief moment. It was enough time for him to open an app and me to miss how he'd navigated there.

"Ya see?" Leo asks imploringly as he jams his finger repeatedly on the same section of the device's screen. I can barely make out a play button between his furious pressing of it. "Damn scroll won't work on my game."

Another mystery solved. This phone is called a scroll. This scroll displays the game title — Brick Breaker — in bold red letters near the top of the screen with a man in a hardhat leaning up against a wall with his sledgehammer. More to the point, the entire screen shows no signs of any movement or animation at all.

And that's enough to sink my teeth into.

"You said this has only happened the past few weeks. Is that right?" I ask as I realign the scroll to my perspective on the table. Leo can still see it, but I'm in the driver's seat now.

"'Bout that, yeah."

"Have you noticed it happening anywhere else?"

"Ehhh… I don't get out much."

Whoops. That one was on me. Bad form on my part to phrase a question in a way that could make a client feel uncomfortable. "I meant anywhere else on the phone."

"No. Never."

Information gathering over, I start working on two fronts. My first task as far as the scroll is concerned is closing the app and relaunching it. Best to start with the classics. As far as these two go… "While I fix this up for you, I was hoping you might be able to answer some questions about Shepherd's Rest for me."

"Eh?"

"What kind of questions?"

"Nothing untoward," I quickly appease them with a chuckle. My baritone belly laugh has been replaced with an almost girlish giggle. "I wanted to know how what rooms you have available and how much it is per night for the different rooms. I'm looking for a place to stay tonight and am shopping around."

"Ha!" Leo lets loose a bark of laughter. "A kid like you shoppin' for a room?"

"A kid like me is fixing your problem," I remind him with as much good-natured cheer as I could manage with my boyish voice. "Give me some credit, if you would. The price of the room?"

I finally create an opening for Donna to get back into the conversation by looking at her as I reiterate my question. Putting her off for too long would be a bad thing. However, they are both a couple and business partners. My thawing of Leo can't be done at the expense of completely putting her on ice.

"We got two types of rooms here at the Rest. Basic is a standard hundred lien per night with the extra twenty last minute booking fee. Our deluxe is one-fifty and goes up to one-eighty." She answers, her service voice slightly more frigid than it had been previously.

My head aches at how poor a business model that is. Express fees aren't uncommon. Charging express fees when you can't even get a single customer in the door is. They should be looking to lease rooms at a discount if only so they can lose less money. If they're daft enough to be doing this in the first place, explaining it isn't going to help either. And to add to my list of woes, relaunching the app didn't work.

Fucking hell.

"That seems fair," I lied through my teeth as I begin to power cycle the scroll. Thankfully a button on one of the solid sides proves to be the power. Simple design is universal. "But instead of paying you in lien, what if I paid in service?"

"We ain't no orphanage, brat," Leo quickly soured. "We ain't got no lien to spare on freeloaders."

There comes a time in some service interactions where a client has demonstrated a firm belief in some damn surreal expectations. Bringing them back down to earth without making yourself out to be the enemy is not the easiest thing to manage. Still… work the job long enough…

"That's why I'm offering to trade services. If you have a room you're not renting already, I'm offering to fix this scroll for almost free by taking one off your hands. However," I remove my small hands from the device that's powering back on. "If you'd prefer to take it to a technician and pay them in lien, I won't mind at all."

The mention of spending money makes Donna's face turn a light shade of green. I'm expecting Leo to turn a much darker shade of red.

Goes to show that you can't always predict people. "Bwahahaha! You're a wily little brat, ain't ye? We got the room all right. Not like anyone else be sleepin' here 'sides us two. Donna?"

The question doesn't catch her off guard half as much as it does me. She sighs, shaking her head as she looks to the ground. When she raises her eyes the smile is back on her face like it had never left. "We've no money to take that thing in anyway. You can stay a few nights if it'll save us an extra bill."

"And the food?" I ask. Force of will is the only thing preventing my stomach from rumbling.

"I might be able to whip ya up something cheap. It ain't gonna be no clam chowder, though."

I laugh, enjoying her earnesty as her speech starts to become more natural as I'm no longer a paying customer. Looks like people aren't that different a world away.

"I'm grateful for anything you have. And now let's see if this works…"

I load up the app by finding its recognizable name displayed on the screen. I click on it and offer a prayer for salvation that should probably go ignored all things considered.

But the lord works in mysterious ways.

"Cmon, partner! Let's break some bricks!" The game projects through the scroll's speakers without freezing. If I had a dollar for every time a power cycle fixed a problem… I suppose it wouldn't do me much good anymore. I'd need that payment in lien.

"Well, I'll be damned."

Leo quickly snatches the device back from me and hits the play button. Cartoonish noises fill the air as a toothy grin spreads across his face. Donna's relief is palpable as she shakes her head again. An amused sort of smile takes over her face as she looks fondly at her husband. Looks like there is love there after all.

I strangle the life out of the feeling rising in my gut.

"Glad to help," I say sincerely. I do genuinely enjoy helping people out. "If I could get something to eat now I'll finish it quickly and be out of your hair. It has been an unbelievably long day."

Donna wordlessly ushers me behind the counter, presumably to the kitchen. She doesn't want to interrupt Leo who is now thoroughly engaged in playing his rather noisy game on his scroll. I quietly get out of my chair and move towards Donna. As I walk behind Leo I make what could debatably be the biggest mistake I've had all day.

Yes, all day.

The gamer in me wants to know what kind of futuristic phone games these scrolls can manage. Everything about them feels sleek and advanced. Thinking of what marvels in gaming could have been made with such advanced technology surely puts the mobile games I know to shame.

When I look and see three purple bricks being moved into a line, thereby breaking them, it feels as if time has stopped. I know this game. I've seen it and its ilk a thousand times over. My anticipation turns to regret and pain as it so often does. I surely have made a deal with the devil to be placed here.

God is dead and Candy Crush clones have killed him.

* * *

Opening the door to my room, I was greeted with an unnecessarily large for my small frame. Besides the bed, the room wasn't much. A simple shaded lamp sat perched atop a nightstand on the bed's right side. I noticed two scenic paintings of a beach and a mountainside hanging on the walls flanking the door. It was a small, homey room that I could easily tell was decorated by Donna. Having taken in my surroundings, I begin to close out my day.

I undress down to my boxers. The intent is to keep my clothes clean as long as possible since they are my only pair. If I look like an unwashed orphan it will be hard to replicate the miracle I managed today. I fold the plain shirt and pants and stash them in the nightstand drawer. The basic needs of the day had been met. With room and board covered for the next three days — which we'd agreed to over dinner — I was left with only one thing left on my list.

Decompartmentalization.

Which, clearly, I was ecstatic about. Absolutely fucking thrilled.

"A new world, huh?"

What a weird thing I needed to come to grips merging of older technologies like the palisade with the modern invention of cellphones and electricity doesn't make sense to me. Walled cities and castles had seen a steep decline in European culture with the advent of advanced artillery pieces and gunpowder on the west coast. On the east coast, I believe it was Temüjin, khan of khans, whose exploitation of walled cities was mythic.

The long and short of it was this; a wall wouldn't cut it if a human populus with technology above swords and spears wanted to invade you. And so civilizations abandoned them for more modern means of defense.

"Have they invented cell phones without figuring out gunpowder or basic siege warfare?"

I doubt-

 _Ha! I do not believe I've born witness to a stream of human inventions that did not wind their way back into the river of war. Those few that were not conceived for war itself, that is._

I wouldn't say I'd forgotten about my passenger. I was, however, enjoying the time in which he'd decided to stay silent and his interruptions. It wasn't that I disliked the personality of this disembodied voice that by all accounts now lived inside of me. It was, rather obviously, more of an issue of him being a disembodied voice that now lived inside me that had somehow managed to pick me from my bed and dragged me here. Wherever here is. And whatever _it_ is, I'm sure it isn't human if it's able to accomplish that.

Which creates a sort of frustration when it says things I couldn't disagree with. "If walls serve as functional safety I'd have to guess the main threat is the wildlife."

It was the only conclusion I'd come to that made any sense. Big walls didn't keep out determined groups of people with tech that could make phones more advanced than any I'd ever seen. Even if the people here had a culture that promotes pacifism above all, there's no way they'd make it from pointed sticks to cell phones without some asshole figuring out whatever they burn or cycle to make electricity would make a hell of a firecracker.

The reason military technology sets the pace of a society's technology is simple. If one ambitious son of a bitch got his hands on guns when everyone else had swords, he'd either take over or fail and have his tech reverse engineered. Progress has prevailed in either scenario. That isn't even getting into how well the human psyche responds to the pressure of war. Well... as far as technology is concerned. The 'invent or repurpose something to kill people better or we're all going to die' mindset is responsible for way more technological leaps than they teach kids in school. Poor Einstein.

The walls wouldn't have been erected without purpose. And having trekked the better part of a day through it, I knew the town to be in an environment that could easily host dangerous wolves or bears, but the walls still seemed excessive. Maybe they were an anti-bandit measure? Simple highwaymen could have been put off by the fortifications where more determined brigands would not. I scratch my head, rustling the covers as I do so and decide to put the matter to rest. I don't have enough information and overthinking it won't get me anywhere.

It's pretty easy to guess that I want to focus on the functional side of things as any explanation as to how I'm here will feel far too fictional. It's a redundant thought that I've iterated repeatedly throughout the day, yet I keep coming back to it. That's normal for me. I'll think of something a hundred times over before actually doing something about it.

But this time I'm not sure I have that luxury.

I take the plunge. "If I was to ask what your deal is, would I get a snarky response?"

 _I do prefer it when people address me more directly if you please._

Miffed, I roll my eyes. I don't think that is the emotion I should be feeling towards some sort of transdimensional being who blinked me into existence in some new world. I'm now convinced of that fact as the cell phones — scrolls, I remind myself — of this world are far removed from how my imagination would have designed them.

Back to the task at hand. I ask again. "What is your deal?"

 _Whatever I make between myself and an agreeing party._

"... I really should have seen that coming."

A majority of communication is nonverbal. Body language comprised of posture, facial expressions and gestures told you a lot more about what you were saying than words and tone could. Making judgements on this entity based only on what he said and how he said it was difficult. It felt… playful? It had done nothing to outwardly harm me. That, at least, was in its favor.

Well… it said it liked directness. Didn't it? "I'm trying to figure out if you're some evil pact-making demon who is trying to devour my soul. Care to weigh in?"

The entity's deep laugh had all the volume and richness of one resonating deep in the belly. So boisterous was his mirth that it took a moment for it to compose itself for a response. _I do declare that your cart resides in an entirely different world than your horse._ It replied, still chuckling.

"You lost me."

The last vestiges of laughter faded away from his voice, though amusement still clearly colored it. _Were you to concern yourself with the safety of your soul, I find it difficult to inform you that such thoughts would have served you better before a deal had been struck._

"Ain't that the truth," I sighed. No one made decisions quite as stupid as a person who was running from something. I'd been an idiot. "I didn't look hard enough before I leaped. I can admit my fault there."

 _An admittance which, to be perfectly frank, accomplishes nothing._ Senses honed since I was a child detected the tiniest bit of ire creeping into his voice. _What does that admittance do for you now? You have chosen to leap. A commander who leads men to their deaths ought to claim no less responsibility because he regrets it._

"Could you not put words in my mouth? I don't think I can say how I feel about the decision yet," I admit with a powerful melancholy. Pathetic as I knew it was, that was the truth. "Right now I hate why I made the decision. That's it. My trying to figure out if the decision itself is poor is why I asked you what your endgame is."

 _I recall the words being soul-sucking demon._

"Tomato, tomahto."

The entity chuckled with much more reservation than before. It had the sound of self-admonishment. And while there was no such sound that it made, I could perceive the exhalation of tension regardless.

 _You wish to know if I am dealing in contracts for souls?_

"There was that demon bit I'd attached to the question as well."

 _Then no. I do not consider myself a demon of contracts who seeks to devour your soul._

I'm starting to wisen up to the game it's playing. Specifically worded questions get answered to the letter in which they were asked. "Would others consider you as such?"

 _I would have to imagine there are some that do. Yes._

"But you don't?"

 _I said as much._

"What would you say disqualifies that assessment from being true?"

There was a pause. _You do have a mind for the spoken word. Very well. I am neither demon nor do I devour souls._

That would have been oh so easy to accept if I hadn't ignited all my brain's cylinders. The answer was so specific that I was convinced it meant something.

"Would you say you're disinterested in souls?"

 _I believe I've humored more than enough questions for the evening._

People never called cessations without answering the question because the answer was innocent. That meant while it was possible that I'd gain confirmation by pressing the issue, I could also consider it a relatively low gamble on an assumption. That was the logical thing to do.

Which, of course, made it entirely predictable.

I decide that predictability changes nothing. I'm not willing to press my luck and I'm not willing to let the issue die either. I opt for patience. "Fair enough," I reply as casually as possible. "Like I said earlier; not like I can force you."

There's no response. I wait… and I wait… ten minutes pass and I take the hint that our conversation is now over. I'd never turned on any lights in the room to begin with, so all that's left to do is roll over onto my side and call it a night. I need my rest.

Life was going to be a hell of a lot different than I was used to moving forward. Finding more odd jobs was going to be essential, as would not caring about how I was paid. Money, food, clothes, and tools were all necessary parts of life that I didn't have anymore. Finding the means to keep on living is now the name of the game for me. I didn't have the luxury of focusing on much else.

Sleep starts to claim my exhausted body. I didn't need to know how many miles I walked to know it was way more than I'd managed in a long time. My muscles and feet had started to ache even more now that they'd had time to set. As I gave in to my eventual slumber I was hit with one last double shot of shame and guilt.

I was still smiling.

* * *

 _ **Writing in the present tense and from the first-person perspective is extremely new to me. Hope you all are having a nice day.**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Greetings and salutations! It's that guy who occasionally writes things that nobody wants to read while his other stories burn in the background!**_

 _ **I'm posting this chapter with full awareness of how much of a barrier to entry this chapter will be to this story. Bringing it to the third chapter without directly involving the RWBY cast is something I would never recommend to anyone who wants to increase their viewership in the FF community. People tend to not read stories for the story itself and more for the way their favorite characters interact with each other in new and exciting ways. Normally I'd care about that, except not with this story. This is the one story I write with zero consideration to audience interaction and thus I can focus on what I think makes the most structurally sound story overall.**_

 ** _Been gone for awhile as is becoming the norm. Started a job at Amazon that initially killed my energy. On the plus side, working such a physical job for this long has finally started to result in a bit of a surplus of energy. Can I ride this wave to writing more often? Doubtful. But hey, here's hoping._**

* * *

 **Chapter 3**

 **Rejection Makes Progress**

I'm sure that plenty of people like to think of what would happen if they were reborn. I, on the other hand, have always considered it the most useless type of daydream; one with no useful takeaway no matter how much time one devotes to them. Spend the day imagining being stronger, smarter, or more handsome and you may eventually decide that you're tired of not being those things. Those dreams, at least, can motivate a person to be better than they are.

Wishing for a clean slate is exactly the opposite. It's a dream of experience and regret. It won't help someone turn their life around because the whole concept is based around fixing mistakes before they're made. It's wishing you never spilled your milk when you should just clean up your mess, get some more damn milk and be less clumsy next time.

What I don't like is hoping for something that can never be. No faster way for your engine to stall out than to spend all your time whining about past mistakes you can never turn back the clock to fix.

Call me a primary source.

"I shouldn't have done that." I groan to myself as I take a seat at one of the tables at Shepherd's Rest.

"Shouldn't o' done what?"

Leo is sitting at what I'd quickly learned was his perch at the inn. I'd gone in and out several times today and he'd never been anywhere but at _his_ table pushed up against _his_ wall near _his_ power outlet. If Donna were to tell me that he was actually a spirit haunting her inn, I'd probably believe her.

I let my body slump onto the table and bang my head against it. I'm hoping to give myself a concussion and forget the events of the last half-hour. It'd be a bonus if the rest of this failure of a day went along with it.

When that fails to work after six or seven good hard knocks, I look to my right and see Leo still waiting expectantly. His face defines smug in the most goading of ways possible. Though I don't want to admit it at present, that's partially my fault. Considering Leo's personality type I should have known better than to challenge him.

"Well?" Leo prompts me again with a grin that shows off his yellowing teeth.

I sigh and give him what he wants. It'll be faster this way. "Found an older man complaining about his television and thought I might be able to help him."

It had actually been perfect. I'd been walking down the street and asking people for work or if they had any broken tech. It wasn't exactly like I had a plethora of options to choose from. As far as jobs were concerned, my options were working my trade, unskilled labor, or using my newfound childish appearance to guilt money out of people.

I'd sooner starve than do that last bit.

Since I'd only secured a few days at Shepherd's Rest, things were looking grim. If I couldn't find some way to make money I wouldn't be able to afford to stay here. Sure, I could probably convince Leo and Donna to lower the price with the same logic I used to get my food in the door in the first place, but that didn't mean-

"I'm guessin' by your face you didn't fix no TV."

I get brought back to earth — or wherever we are — thanks to Leo's incessant need to rub his win in my face. I'm not so proud as to deny someone their victory lap… it's more the exact nature of my earlier mishap is still presently horrifying me. There are some implied accusations you never want to hang over your head.

"Get on with it!" Leo prompts me again, unwilling to wait any longer than strictly necessary to start gloating.

I sigh and give in. "I didn't get a chance to. He was an older man lunching with a friend at one of the eateries. I tried to introduce myself and asked if I could help him."

An industry-standard question. It shouldn't have been anything I'd even need to mention in this recounting of the story.

It was, obviously. "Somehow the sixty-something-year-old man gets the idea I'm propositioning him. He freaked out and ran off spluttering denials. I lost sight of him before I stopped hearing him."

I probably didn't need to add that last part since I doubt Leo heard it. I could hardly make out my own words over the sound of his laughter as he slaps his table repeatedly. Figuring that he's a lost cause if I'm looking for any sympathy, I turn my head to the service counter, hoping to find some from Leo's better half who is sadly polishing their glasses with a cleaning rag.

It's sad because a thin line of dust on those cups has made it necessary.

Donna hums understandingly. "Scraggly white beard, green eyes and fidgety?"

"Pretty sure." I answer. The town is probably a few hundred people and somehow all of them seem to know each other. A strange concept for a city-boy like me who wouldn't know his own neighbor if he knocked on the door.

"Ain't nothing you did, sonnie. That be Gary you were talking to. He's been a bit on edge recently."

I wonder how on edge I'd have to be to think a squirt offering to help was trying to get it on with me. Leo, ever the antagonist, can't resist the opportunity to give me some much needed context.

"Old Gare's wife has been tryin' to catch him in the act again. She sikked a few o' her lassies on him awhile back jus' ta test him. Gare probably thought-"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." I stop him from finishing. Now that's a sickening thought. "What kind of dysfunctional marriage do those two have?"

"It's all Gary's fault," Donna huffed. "He and Helen were perfectly happy 'til he mucked it up."

Leo's laughter intensifies to a mirthful wheeze. "Hel came home from market one day and found him with Matti, down on her knees, givin' him the most-"

"Giving him seven minutes o' heaven." Donna censors her husband. The glare she levels on him to coerce his silence is ferocious.

Try as I might, it's hard to not be perceived as a kid. I've done everything I can short of bringing up the issue directly to guide the two of them towards treating me like the adult I am. I've clearly succeeded more with Leo than I have with Donna, though that likely owes more to their different personalities than any err on success on my part. At least I'm sure they aren't babying me in terms of our business transactions. Since that's what counts, it's good enough for me. Not like I can explain my circumstances to them.

" _The thing is, I made a deal with some transdimensional entity who teleported me into a new world because I'm weak and made a fool's deal in a moment of desperation, or at least that's my present working theory. I'm not actually a kid. I'm a grey-collar worker. So if you could treat me like a really tiny, yet fully grown man, I'd appreciate it."_

I don't think that cookie crumbles in my favor.

The image of the previously mentioned adultery floating around my head brings me back to the present with a scoffing laugh. "Mathilda must really get around."

"Ever since her husband passed," Donna agrees with a prodigious frown. Whether that's because of Mathilda or my vernacular is an open question. Likely both. "That woman's like a lamprey with a taste for married men. She's a plague upon our husbands."

"Give Matti a break. All our women are been treating her like a darn scapegoat. She's a sad and lonely lass, not no plague."

"Oh really? She comes uninvited and unwanted and don't leave 'til your husband be gasping for each sweaty breath. If that don't sound like no plague to you then I think you might be one of the afflicted."

"For the last time, I ain't sleepin' with Matti!"

It turns out you can be tired of hearing something you've only heard for a day. I don't know if it's a miracle or a curse that these two are still married. It's sure as hell the work of a greater power one way or another.

"Shifting the conversation away from Matti and her proclivities."

"Proclivawhat?"

"Her active sexuality," I sigh, warranting a small gasp for my nonexistent childish innocence from Donna. "Is there anything I can do to extend my stay past the next two days?"

Donna and Leo look to one another and exchange awkward glances while having the renowned silent conversation that any couple that had been together long enough could have.

Having come to a less than accommodating decision, it was on Leo to break the bad news. "Look, kid… it ain't so much that we can't spare the room as we can't spare much o' anything. I 'preciate what ya did for mah scroll, but that ain't money I can use to pay Sam for groceries. That ain't even mentioning the guard tax we're three months behind on."

I presume that to be a tax levied on the townspeople to pay the guard I saw at the gate. Apparently his standing there doing nothing is worth a paycheck. I'm jealous.

"The neighbors used ta come in for lunch and supper even if they weren't staying the night. We can't hardly get anyone in the doors no more, save a random traveler here and there." Donna adds solemnly.

"And I can't even offer to work off my stay since there isn't any work to do." I conclude.

It's as unfortunate as it is understandable. A ship being able to throw a rope to some schmuck floating by on a plank requires its crew to not need all hands below deck bailing water. If taking me on was going to make them drown faster I knew I couldn't let them do that. Even if they were willing, I'd have a moral obligation to refuse.

With my options exhausted here, it's time to navigate my dingy back towards the waters of the town. Even if Donna and Leo have nothing, surely I can find some work somewhere.

I get out of my chair, falling a short distance to the ground due to its height and my lack thereof. How much I'm harping on that shows the very probable reality of starving hasn't quite set in yet. Failing to clear five-foot-nothing has popped into my head more times than a roof over my head and food in my belly. I need to focus up.

I'm about to say my farewells when a thought strikes me.

Just because they can't help me doesn't mean they can't help me.

"Either of you have any idea what I can do differently with the townsfolk?" I ask without much hope. Can't fault myself for trying, though. "Ignoring Gary's more dramatic refusal, no one else was very receptive either."

It was odd. Everyone was sunshine and daffodils until I asked for work. It wasn't like anyone had gotten angry with me. It was that they all offered the same polite but firm refusals that raised my guard. The uniformity and consistency of their refusals were such that each successive person only added to the suspicion that it was rehearsed.

Whether it was because he was an outcast or simply that he couldn't be fucked to keep the secret, Leo was happy to spill the beans. "Ya ain't one of us."

"What? Like I don't live here?" I ask without really understanding the exact flavor of beans that have been spilled.

"Part o' it. Well, most o' it."

"It ain't that they don't think you're trustworthy," Donna elaborated. "More that not trusting you is best for their families."

I'm lost. Well and truly lost. This must be similar to how people feel when I give them my technocrat babble. Sure, it all makes sense in my head and in the context of people with my skill set. I understand what they're telling me like a client would understand what a distended capacitor is. Which is to say that I don't.

"It be like this, squirt," Leo took on the tone of talking down to me as I suppose he had the right to here. "Old Gare makes chairs and tables and the like. Is he very good at it? Ehhhhh…" His voice trailed off.

"No he isn't," Donna drops her rag on the counter and makes her way out from behind it. She sits herself down at the table next to Leo's and across from me. "But if we need a table there ain't no way we're buying it from some traveling furniture salesman."

"Those exist?"

"Not the point. The point-"

I interrupt her because it hasn/t taken me long to get the idea. "The point is that you're a small, tight-knit community who looks out for one another by making sure to give your own people the jobs over strangers. Anyone who does otherwise gets stripped from the herd and left out in the cold to die as a lesson to everyone else."

"A bit grim o' ya, but ya ain't wrong."

Leo's confirmation might as well ring my death knell. I'm good enough at talking to people to get by most things. What I can't do is unravel the bindings of tribalism built over a lifetime in two days. I'm used to cities where your obligation to your neighbor is singular; calling the cops if you hear a loud noise and think they're being robbed. This is not a landscape I know how to navigate. Not a language I know how to speak.

I drum my fingers on the table as I drop into the thinking tank. Right now I've got very little going for me and a heap of things working against me. That neatly equivocates into having plenty of reasons to be depressed and very little to be happy about. I can't have that.

Few options and none of them good. Everything I can think of would immediately get disqualified either by lack of effectiveness or virtue. All the honest options have me screwed and any option that works has me lying.

I'm not a fan of being told lies nor do I like to be the one doing the telling. It's a slippery slope that's hard to navigate and once you start it's hard not to pick up speed. The unfortunate truth is that I need that kind of momentum right now, so it looks like I need some skis

"Not trying to dive the knife deeper," I preface my on the fly approach. Time to take an idea and run with it. "But you don't look like you're very busy."

"Really, brat? You don' say?!"

I'm learning to love Leo and how predictable he is. The old bird preens with the smallest praise and hisses like an alleycat at an equally minute slight. Both sides of that coin have their uses and this time around I've opted for the hissing alleycat. Anger gives people energy and I need Leo full of vim.

"Shepherd's Rest could use a bit of propping up. What would you say to some quid pro quo?"

"Some whosamawhat?"

I can't know if his lack of understanding comes from his personal lack of knowledge or more broadly attributed to this world's lack of Latin. I'd inquire which it was, but asking someone why they don't know something tends to prove useless as a general rule. Plus, right now I've got Leo just as jilted as I want him to be. Pissing him off further isn't on my docket.

"A little tit for tat. You scratch my back I scratch yours. That sort of thing."

Leo is ever the wary old fox, his gaze narrows as he stares me down. "An' how you gonna scratch my back?"

Donna in the background sighs and shakes her head. It didn't take me long to realize that so long as I convince Leo, Donna would go with the flow so long as it wasn't too out there. Spending money they didn't have had been one of the only things she'd actively resisted on. And so, as per usual in my line of work, the task at hand was to convince a cantankerous old man to let me help him so I can get paid.

Yay…

"I'll need to understand your business model a bit better to do that," I admit, leaning forward in my chair across the table to get a few inches closer to him. The body language meant something even if we were still many feet apart. My right arm braces against the hardwood table to support my hunching body. "Are you a restaurant with rooms? Are you an inn with food?"

"Is there a difference?" Donna asked, inserting herself into the conversation. "You eat and sleep at both."

I nod my head emphatically. "A staggering one. Have you ever stayed at a hotel in a city?"

Normally I'd think it fair to assume the answer to that question would be an obvious yes. Everyone I know has stayed at a hotel at some point. The level of infrastructure this town has leads me to believe there probably are bigger cities in the world. I doubt these scrolls were produced in a village this small. That's factory work.

Still, I couldn't be certain. Not until Donna confirms it for me. "Most of our children moved over to Vale once they were old enough. When our oldest first moved out we brought the whole family to visit. Didn't have enough space for us all so we had to put ourselves up."

I mentally note the name Vale and continue. "How were the rooms?"

"They were lovely," Donna gushed with a dreamy look on her face. The way she planted her elbows on the counter and let her chin rest on them made me feel like she could see that room in her mind's eye as clear as if they'd just gotten back. "We had a nice queen that'd been turned down just right. They had a pretty painting of a dog by the lake in the fall above the bed too. Adorable little thing was pawing the water like he wasn't sure…"

And I immediately tune her out. If you're an introvert who works service you need to learn how to act the extrovert if you want to be any good at your job. That doesn't make you an extrovert. It makes you wizard with a mana bar. While the wizard has to worry about casting too many spells, an introvert has to avoid tiring themselves on interaction they don't need.

I use Donna's time dithering to tie the gist of what she'd said to more practical points. My room had paintings abounding and the bed had been turned down as well. She's probably been modeling her own place off that hotel. That's important to know.

"And they even had one of those tiny refrigerators stocked with beverages right and ready for us," She sighed blissfully. "Much too rich for my blood. Didn't matter, though. Really tied the room together that fridge did."

"Sounds like you enjoyed the room."

"It was lovely," Donna reiterates her previous sentiment. "Wasn't it, dear?"

Leo grunts and nods his head. Safe to assume he didn't care much one way or another.

"Did they have a free breakfast spread?"

"Ha!" Leo's barking laughter is so cutting I almost flinch. "If you call some room temperature bacon, flapjacks, and eggs on some broken heaters a spread."

"Their breakfast wasn't great… I don't think we ate it again past the first day."

"But would you go there again?"

Donna and Leo exchange a few more comments and critiques before Donna gives me the answer that thankfully helps me make my point. "Even if the food wasn't the best, it was still a nice place to stay. Roomy, comfortable, and the view was to die for."

I knock my knuckles against the table twice in victory and lean back in my chair. Then I lean the chair itself back to balance on its back legs just to savor the win all the more. "That's my point! It isn't bad that you offer food and a roof since you have the means to do both. Having options is good so long as you make sure you prioritize the one that makes you more money. Did you do more business as an inn or selling food?" I ask. Pause. Then hastily I add on an addendum. "Back when you had traffic."

"What's it to ya?"

Leo graciously takes the effort to prove my earlier point. I prefer conversation with Donna over this old git. He's opinionated, loud, and grouchy. Donna is quiet, subdued, and even though she has her own opinions, the woman at least has the poise to be polite about them.

I can't stress enough how important it is to aim your pitch at the most disagreeable person if the procession requires unilateral approval. Try as one might, there isn't always a way around the pain in the ass throwing monkey wrenches at your plan. Sometimes there isn't a way through him either. Getting the job done might demand dragging that pain in the ass along for the ride and making sure he's happy throughout so he doesn't jam a spanner into everything that whirs.

"Well, if I can figure out what the business model is, then I should be able to make you a proposition."

"What kind o' proposition?"

I grin. "The kind where I more than earn my keep while you earn the means to pay off some debts and give me a little something for my troubles."

"An' what trouble's that?"

"The kind where if I don't make you enough to pay me, you don't."

When Leo's yellowed teeth bare at me with mercenary intent I can just make out my hook in his lip. All that's left is to reel him in.

"Then whattare we waiting for?"

But if the fish swims up to the shore by itself, who am I to complain?

* * *

"Hmmm…"

"What do you think?" The man across from me asks after having given me all of fifteen seconds to look his scroll over. We're sitting across from each other at a corner table in Sheperd's Rest. His ruffled and oily brown hair contrast the young and otherwise attractive appearance. I'd put him at his late twenties if asked to hazard a guess. "Do you know what's wrong with it?"

Any person who has worked as a "skilled professional" — and yes, putting that in quotations is entirely necessary — that liases directly with the everyman knows the necessity of being both human and superhuman. Act too high and mighty and your client walks off thinking the only way you can stand up straight is with the giant stick he's sure is shoved up your ass. Act too casual and they'll intuit that you're a dumbass with no idea what you're doing. The first one drives away business, sure, but you _really_ don't want them thinking the second one.

Even when it's true.

"I've seen things like this before. It can be caused by a few things I can think of off the top of my head. Would you mind if I ask you some questions about your scroll?"

"Like what?"

"Ever go swimming with it?"

"Yeah. Why would that matter? Isn't it waterproof?"

"Water-resistant," I immediately clarify. I'd spent the remainder of the morning borrowing Leo's own scroll for research. He didn't much like that. With the intelligence of the average consumer being almost constant between my world and this one, it looks like a lot of the terminology was the same. As were a lot of the advertising spiels. "This model is good for about fifty feet deep. Did your problems flare up around the time you last went swimming with it?"

His oily hair makes a flapping sound as he shakes his head. "Last time we went to a beach was on our Vacuo trip last summer. It's been working fine until recently."

"No spills, either? Juice, water, anything like that?"

"I'm a father of two," He laughs. "A toddler and a seven-year-old. My life is nothing but spills. I keep my scroll as far away from the splash zone as possible. So far, so good."

 _Ding ding ding._ I sigh internally. Denying the spills and admitting kids gives me a few more common boxes to check as to what could be wrong with this thing. That's good for me since I lack both the expertise and the tools to do any in depth repairs on the devices. I don't let the relief show on my face.

That's the superhuman part; keeping full control of all emotions at all times. When it comes to triaging, don't announce victory until the bird is in the hand. Boast that you know what it is before you fix it and I guarantee you that bird will find its way to the bush to spite you.

"Were you visiting family? Taking your family on a vacation?" I ask, fulfilling more of my human quota.

Too stiff and you're a tool they won't remember. Too loose and you're an unprofessional nit who isn't worthy of their business. Stay confident, collected, and even as you're throwing darts at the board more or less blind, you'll look like you know what you're doing because they're too busy remembering their vacation to Tahiti to notice you fumbling around with their device.

I start to work while the man prattles about his trip. I'm allocating a twentieth of my mental faculty to listening just so I can keep the conversation going. He's entertained telling a story to someone who appears to care. Five minutes spent talking to someone about your family trip is a lot shorter than five minutes watching some guy work on your device with a nervous expression the entire time.

"And since it was Kira's first time with wet sand, she just didn't know what to make of it. Her whole foot got trapped and she splatted face first into the sand. I swear, it sounded like the ground slapped her."

I give the man a good-natured laugh. It helps that his story is actually funny. Not usually a luxury I get. "She sounds like quite a handful. And by the looks of it, your scroll agrees with me."

"What?"

I flip the scroll around to show him. Normally I'd be sitting aside from him, but this circular corner table doesn't offer that kind of space. "This is a list of every program your scroll is running right now."

"That's…" The man blinks twice. "A long list."

"And most of them are games too. Hey, she even has Brick Break. Small world… small world!" I repeat a bit louder. It's noisy in here and I don't think he heard me the first time. "Even if they aren't actively running in the forefront, each of those is a background process that your scroll has to juggle during everything you're doing. Think of it like having to go to work while never allowing yourself to forget any item on your grocery list for a second."

He gives me an embarrassed chuckle. "I'm surprised it's working at all. If I close these then it should go back to working like normal?"

"Can't say for sure. Hopefully this fixes it."

"You're not filling me with confidence."

My baritone belly laugh sounds shrill to my ears. So many of my mannerisms are made awkward by my nearly pubescent voice. I do my best to ignore it. "Think of it like running your disposal when the drain clogs. It's the first thing you should try when the sink doesn't work. Usually it fixes it right up. If not, we go from there."

"So I should…?"

"Close as many programs as you can and then turn it off and on again. If it works, you can drop my payment at the counter on your way out." I gesture towards a fat glass vase on Donna's counter already half full with a good amount of colored bills. The man has to lean out of his chair a bit to see where I'm pointing. Why?

Because a good eight tables in Shepard's Rest are occupied.

"What if it doesn't?"

"Bring it back to the plumber and we'll check the pipes next," I smile. "Tap me on the shoulder and you'll jump the queue as soon as I finish whoever I'm with at the time."

"You got it… and thanks!" He adds as an afterthought. His chair squeaks against the wooden floor as he gets up, brushing some wrinkles out of his shirt as he does. Instead of finding a vacant table he wanders his way over to Leo's crowded one and pulls up a chair that he tries to squeeze into an almost nonexistent gap. "Hell of a grandkid you got there, Leo. Smart as a whip and gentler than my wife."

"I sanded this table with paper less coarse than your wife and I still thought I was being too rough with it"

"Any word of what you said gets back to her and I'm hanging you out to dry."

"Ha! You young men always scared of your women."

The table laughs. All except the man himself. I can see him squirm slightly. Reaching into my pant's pocket, I pull out a pencil and pad, scribble a note down, and put it carefully back in my pocket.

I allow myself a brief period of satisfaction. The inn is selling food and drink to the customers that Leo wrangled in here by claiming I was his grandson. My idea, of course. That allowed me to not only bypass, but lean into the tribalism. I asked the first person Leo brought to me what the standard rates for scroll fixes were and undercut them significantly. Saying we're related provides the moral pretext that allows them to embrace their selfish side and take me up on the cheap repairs.

After I'm through with them, it's up to Donna and Leo to reel them in as customers since they're in the building. By telling them to verify the issue is fixed, I give them a compelling reason to stay. No one likes leaving before knowing their problem is fixed. From there, the obligation to buy something while they test their scrolls means an influx of customers while I'm here, but not beyond. That's why I have two jobs tonight.

For now, it's time for me to get back to my first. "Can I help whoever's next?"

* * *

My busy workday turned into a busy worknight. It turned out that their tech guy here was such a scalper that large sum of the village had been holding onto damaged or otherwise fritzing scrolls for the chance to get them repaired on a trip to a big city where they could avoid the judgement of their peers. I turned out to be a welcome alternative.

I couldn't do much for the broken devices. Board and screen issues require boards and screens to fix. Not to mention whatever potentially proprietary screwdriver these little things might use. _Also_ not mentioning the time it would take me to do a full teardown on one for the first time. That was going to take practice. Fortuitously enough, that was practice which I was just finishing securing the means to.

"Alright. You're good to go." I say with a smile as I pass the lady's scroll back to her.

"Oh, thank you thank you thank you! This thing has been driving me nuts for months. I swear that Timmy was going to make me snap if I couldn't get it fixed soon."

Her son. She sounds like a mother who parks her kids in front of their screens so she doesn't have to deal with them. As much as I would have been grateful for that as a kid, as an adult I can't say it's ideal parenting. I remind myself that I can't choose my customers. I technically _could_ , it's more that doing so at such a volatile time is like asking to starve to death.

Especially with what she's paying.

"Shame that you couldn't fix the other one," She sighs. "Still, better to give it to you than pay Seward what he asked to fix it. I'll have to buy a new one when we visit Vale this summer."

I pull the DOA scroll to my side of the table. Wouldn't charge, wouldn't turn on, wouldn't do squat. I'd agreed to waive the repair fee for the other scroll if she let me have this broken one. Idea was that I didn't need a working scroll to practice my teardowns. Practice on this junker would add tools to my belt. Speaking of… I need tools.

"... I do have to be going. Was there anything else?"

Sometimes only dedicating five percent of your attention to something led to lapses. I adopt a bashful expression that in no way portrayed how I actually felt. "I slipped off imagining a vacation to Va- … a vacation of my own. Your family must be thrilled to go."

Yikes. Letting slip that I'm not from Vale would have been very bad what with Leo telling everyone I'm the son of his daughter who lives in Vale. My mind is fried. Not surprising from a psychological standpoint. The level of activeness the past two days have required has been one hell of a gearshift for me. Talk about going from zero to sixty in five seconds.

Dispensing with a few more pleasantries and well wishes, the lady eventually makes her way to the exit with a few parting remarks to Donna, presently hunched over and wiping down the tables. A necessity after the day's service.

With a sigh of relief and and a raspy voice I ask Donna the question I only want one answer to. "That it for the night?"

"Leo?" She asks.

The older man emerges from a side area behind the counter wiping his brow with a dishrag. "It wasn't everyone I know, but ye only wanted a third, right?"

"Right."

"Thank fuck fer that." He groans as he slumps over onto the counter.

"Leo!"

A third today, a third tomorrow, and a third the next day. The town boasts a population of a few hundred. While vehicles seem to be a pretty huge luxury, scrolls are aplenty and many are in need of fixing. I'd continued my investigation into the local tech while I worked with the people Leo brought in. I can't know that he's a lazy prick for sure. All signs seem to point that way, though. High prices, long turnaround time, not very friendly, and other such descriptors were used by the townsfolk to describe him and his business. I was a welcome alternative even if I could only fix the basics.

"The work isn't over yet," I remind them, cutting through their bickering over Leo's choice language. "Are you both ready to talk this out?"

I pat the table I've been sitting at all day twice, beckoning them over. Donna's the first to approach with a somewhat weary smile while Leo takes a good long while before he begins to trudge himself over and sat himself next to his wife, both across from me. I'd finished one of my jobs for the day. Now it was time to finish the second one. I pull the notepad I'd been using out of my pant's pocket.

"The good news is that everyone felt pretty comfortable talking to me about my 'grandparents'. I'd thought they'd have some reservations speaking ill about you both and this place. It's both a tragedy and possibly your saving grace that most didn't."

"Peh." Leo spit petulantly. Donna sat silently beside him

I restrain myself from giving him a much deserved glare and continue. "Let's start with the high points and work our way down. The food was the most positive thing of note," Thank Christ for that too. I'm no chef. If the food was one of the problems there wouldn't be much I could do to surmount that problem. "Reviews on the food averaged around the upper medium. Shepherd's Rest has problems. The food isn't one of them."

Donna exhales a breath she'd been unwittingly holding. Being the one in charge of the food meant fault would have been hers. Instead, it was one of the few good things that they had to work with.

"As far as strict positives go, food comprises the entire list. Aesthetics were a-"

"Ae-whatics?"

"Appearances," I finally fail to stifle a groan. I have my limits. "There were some complaints about the tables and chairs not being uniform… not being all the same. I discounted that since some people recognized and appreciated that you bought these from the local carpenter."

"The few that used the rooms in the past found them clean and prepared, much the same as I did. The biggest complaint was the lack of personal showers for the rooms. That's beyond your means to worry about right now, so don't."

I could feel Leo getting ready to jump in. Being that I was pretty damn done with the day, I had no intention of letting him. "But none of these are the reason you have literally no one in here on a regular day. I didn't even need to consult my notes to figure it out because I've been hearing the same exact thing all day long. Apparently, everyone in this town knows why Shepherd's Rest is empty except for the two people who own it!"

I pause, breathe, and level with them. "Nobody wants to pay money to watch you two argue."

"We don' fight that much." Leo scoffed.

"You don't fight that much? Compared to what? Boxers? Street thugs? I've been here two days and both my hands and feet couldn't count the number of squabbles you've had. Look," I lower my voice as low as it can go in this childish body. It sounds like the A below middle C. "I'm not a marriage counselor. I don't know what problems you two have with each other and how you haven't managed to get a divorce. I'd say kudos to you for trying to work it out, except you're obviously not. You keep bickering and fighting and have been doing so consistently enough that your customers wisened up and decided that if they were going to treat themselves somewhere nice, they'd do it at a place where marital disputes weren't the appetizer, main course, and dessert"

Coming at them this hard maybe wasn't the best tactic. Problem is that I don't think Leo is going to respond to anything other than shock and awe. It's always possible he buries his head in the sand to wait out my aggression. Still, fifty percent chance of something is better than a hundred percent chance of nothing.

"We drove them out?" Donna's voice was quieter than usual. The lively and robust demeanor she'd held during service evaporates into something meek and frail.

"You did," I hammer the nail deeper. I don't believe mercy serves at times like these. Didn't change the fact that I was still human and seeing a woman my mother's age like this… I spoke to her gently. "I know it can be hard to check your feelings at the door. That difficulty doesn't give either of you the right to bring that to the workplace. This business is about making things look easy while making people feel happy that they're being helped by _you_. Exceptional care begets loyal clientele. If you want your business back, Shepherd's Rest needs to be a place so warm and welcoming that people check their worries at the door, not one where they leave with more than they started. You don't make the best food, you don't have the cheapest rooms. Take control of what you can and offer the best service."

I'm sick of that word at this point. 'Service'. What a pain in the ass business to be in. Smiling even when your face hurts from it, giving your yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir all day every day. There was a reason I'd wanted to move from front of house reception to back of house repairs. Less customer interaction. Good thing I don't own this place because I don't think I'd have it in me to do what I'm asking of them. I'd been struggling for awhile and after these past few months…?

No way l could manage that.

And sadly I wasn't alone. "It's our damn place," Leo growled. "If they don't like it, all them can go buzz off."

"They have. How much more absent could they possibly be? Instead of a customer every week do you want it to be a customer every two? Shepherd's Rest is a sinking ship Leo and it needs you to start bailing."

"It's my damn place. If gettin' customers means I can't act how I want then maybe-" Leo's voice fades out of my mind as I resign the bout.

People are complicated. Sometimes the best-laid plans come down to a gamble on how a person is feeling at that moment. I'd taken my shot for big risk and bigger reward. It realistically doesn't matter much to me if this place fails or not. I'll take the money I can get and go from there. That's the rational thing to do. The dreamer in me can't manage to see it that way. I was holding out hope that these two would be able to get this place running again. Happy again. It was idiotically vicarious of me to hope that I could get their marriage working again.

It's easier than anyone would ever want to admit to become a Leo; someone so stuck in their ways that they'd sooner drown than admit they were wrong and start paddling to safety. Mistakes compound on themselves. Do the same wrong thing fifty times and anyone will have found a way to convince themselves it was the right thing. Changing your mind at that point isn't just admitting you're wrong. It's admitting you've been wrong for a long, long time. Only one thing that can match someone determined to stay stuck in their hole.

The absolute need of the person trapped in there with them to get out. "Leo!" The mild-mannered Donna bellowed. It snaps Leo out of his tirade and sure as hell shocks me out of my thoughts. "Enough is enough!"

"Donna?" His voice intones an utterly flummoxed question.

"He's right, ya know! Day in and day out we been fighting 'bout all this stuff that doesn't matter cus I been too afraid to address what do!" Her hysterical voice slips further into a drawl matching Leo's own. "You ain't done a damn thing since…"

Good fucking god there aren't words to describe how little I want to be here. These two need this discussion more than anything I could offer. All I can do is my meager part by being as silent as possible while they work things out.

"What are ye saying, Don? Where's this comin' from?" Leo asks with a voice more fragile than anything I've heard from his wife.

"That you don't know where it's coming from is half the problem!" Donna shouts her response. Her rage to which I've clearly struck the match has burned hot, but it looks like it's also burned fast. The fire in her eyes gives way to a stricken pity. "What happened to you, Leo?"

Silence. What can he say? He clearly doesn't know what to say. I didn't know what to say.

I hadn't known what to say.

"Sorry, deary," Donna looks to me with a forlorn smile, hardly more than the barest upturning of the corners of her mouth. "It looks like Leo and I need some time to sort things out. Be a dear and run along upstairs to your room. The two of us will have this sorted by morning."

I can't think of anything I would want more than permission to leave this disaster, and still, I falter. I take a deep breath into my gut and hold it, rising as I let the air inflate my posture upright so I can escape from the scene before me.

Controlling myself so that my walk doesn't turn into a scamper, I make my way to and up the stairs with a deliberate pace. As I clear the last step to the upper floor I offer a silent prayer for Leo. I do not like him all that much, yet I don't think I've ever wished a man as much luck as I did at that moment.

* * *

As an adult, I never expected to experience this feeling again. I don't think any couple got along all the time. The few times it had happened with my family, I'd locked myself away in my room and waited out the storm. Didn't do much for the aftermath. The staggering awkwardness the following day was always agony.

My rational side knew that whatever fight they'd had was of their own making. Not my fault. It rang a bit hollow to my ears having seen Donna's about face. That wouldn't have happened if I'd shut my trap. Then again, the whole inn would fail if I did nothing and their marriage would likely follow. Then all I did was speed up the timetable?

I decide the same thing I always did in these kinds of situations. There is no absolution and I need to face the problem head on. Unfolding my only pair of clothes from the nightstand drawer, I dress and prepare for the worst. I slap my cheeks with both hands twice. It's time to go.

My view as I descend the stairs shows Shepherd's Rest looks the same as it did last night. No broken tables or chairs, no missing odds and ends as far as I can tell, and no missing Leo. He looks to be the most different thing in the inn. Looking less in his twilight years and more like he has one foot in the grave, Leo's eyes are red. The veiny red of exhaustion and not the blotchy red of tears. His grey-white hair is so disheveled it looks like he'd pulled it at least a hundred times the past night. All in all, Shepherd's Rest looks mostly the same as it did the night before.

With one key absence.

Leo doesn't notice me even after I clear the final step into the main room. I stop, not moving forward as my brain runs frantic with apologies, assurances, and any advice I can possibly offer in the situation. Anything and everything I can say jumbles together like the Gordian knot. I can't manage to untangle them well enough to pick one. What can I say that will matter at a time like this?

When Leo does notice me he immediately lets out a sad and resigned exhale. I can feel my mind seizing as I continue floundering for something to say. After a moment he turns his head towards the counter. "Don!"

I blink three times as my brain stutters to process. continues to struggle in the boot process as I hear the clopping of feet against the wooden floor. Donna emerges from a back area hidden behind the counter with a tired smile. She looks no less exhausted than Leo with dark bags featuring prominently under her eyes. Her brunette hair has been pulled into a bun with many loose hairs jutting out.

"Sorry if I look something of a mess," She immediately apologizes, taking her standard spot at the counter. "It was a long night for us. Did you sleep alright, deary?"

"Slept fine," I respond automatically as I can't manage much else. "And you two were…?"

"Waiting for you, of course. You're the one with the plan."

Understanding what's happening, I finally catch myself and break into the conversational stride. "Right. There were quite a few things I noticed that could be easily fixed as well as some that you'll have to address over the long term. First off…"

I dive into my assessment of the previous day's service because the unspoken subtext is easy enough to understand. They're both still here and I've no business in knowing how. They're sticking things out. What's important to me is that the two of them have decided to take my critiques and suggestions at face value. Though largely silent, Leo is engaging in what I'm saying as is Donna. With his joining in, the three of us are now in the same boat.

Shepherd's Rest needs to turn a profit.

* * *

Day two includes only what I consider to be the most desperately needed changes. Roll out too many things at once and you muddy the waters. Today is less about whether these changes will have a positive effect — I know they will — and more the test of the couple's ability to execute them. It would be a bold-faced lie to say I'm not nervous.

It doesn't take long for the Rest to beat the peak of the previous day. In addition to another third of Leo's contacts being invited, the group from the previous night has done as expected and spread the word. I'd taken Leo's small town lecture to heart when I made my plan and substantially undercut the competition. It wasn't the only benefit I reap from that choice. Letting a neighbor know of a good opportunity would put that person in your debt.

Trusting that people will act in self-interest is an easy bet.

… But I'd bitten off a bit more than I can chew.

"Marge!" Leo booms with a charged energy. "Good to see ya!"

A woman likely in her forties and with a waist to match grins back at him. "Been too long Leo. You're looking good, old timer. Haven't seen you in the shop for too long."

"An' risk Don's wrath? That'll kill me faster than you ever could!"

"At least let a girl try," She says with a salacious wink, slipping a bulky cigar into his hand. Leo's head darts around as he looks for his wife. Finding her hard at work in the kitchen, he slips the contraband quietly into his pocket.

The woman gives a saccharine giggle not befitting her size.

"What ya here for, Marge? Lunch or my grandson?"

Although not my original intent, Leo has had to operate as my concierge. It was hardly one in the afternoon and I'd already helped a baker's dozen. My waiting bench was approaching twice that. I'm not all that aware of Leo's conversation even though I can hear it. My mind is prioritizing the task at hand and classifying their conversation as white noise.

"How long ago did this start happening?"

"Just a couple of days. No clue what's going on." My current client answered.

"Any strange or unusual behavior before that?"

Much like any doctor would start to diagnose an illness, I ask a few questions and start narrowing down the possibilities. While I'm doing this, I'm also thinking of the five scrolls I've already 'checked in', as it were.

Some people didn't have the time to wait in my hour-plus long line that was still growing. I'd given those completely unwilling to wait their turn a piece of notebook paper with a list of questions I'd had Donna write out when things had started going crazy. Reported issue, date issue started, and contact information for when things inevitably fail to be as the client described. I'd have to get to those once we close up and thus I was thinking about them now so I have some direction to go off of.

Despite having five checked in devices, most had been convinced by Leo to sit down for lunch while they waited. Acting as the king of odd jobs today, Leo checks people in, issues them a ticket number, waits tables, and overall takes charge of keeping the atmosphere positive.

"Leo!" Donna calls out. She hastily places two plates of food on the counter before immediately turning back around towards the kitchen. "For John and Doogle."

Proving that he could be spry for his age, Leo swoops to the counter, picks up a plate in each hand and immediately moves to the appropriate table. It didn't matter that twelve parties were seated with more coming in. Leo knew these people personally and uses that to find them instantly. Being able to pull in this kind of business at the drop of a hat told me that he was well liked around these parts at one point. I might be the bait, but Leo and Donna are still what matter most.

"Gonna take a wild guess and say the beef nachos with extra cheese is fer Doogle." Leo says as he places the nachos in front of the older of the two men.

"Damn right!"

"Yer gettin' up in the years there Doogle," Leo grumbles as he gives the other man his seafood salad. "Man your age shouldn't be eatin' no nachos."

"Ha! If Don's house nachos is what does me in, I'll call that a life well spent!"

Leo starts to speak before pausing. Shaking his head he breaks out a grin. "Can't fault ya for that! You know these be the best damn nachos on this side of Remnant!"

That I did pay attention to. Leo's strong personality is what lets him run the front of house like he is right now. Telling him to stifle that wouldn't be good for this place. What he does need to do is learn to take the egg on his face instead of smearing it on others. Thinking back to the man who 'couldn't control his wife' as a perfect example. I sure as hell wouldn't want to come back to a place where the owner said something like that to me.

"Leo! Order up!" Donna shouts over the din. It was hard to hear her, but Leo manages and makes his way over.

What the Shepherd's Rest needs from Donna was the opposite of what it needs from Leo. She needs to step into her own more and take charge of Leo the way he would take charge of her. I had set things up so they had their own jobs and both required the other's help to do them. If all Leo did was push and all Donna did was pull, they'd both end up on their asses again.

But as the day turns to dusk and then to night, both of them manage to stand upright for the entire service. It wasn't until the last call sounds and Leo escorts everyone out with smiles, laughter, and well-wishes that the two of them collapse into the nearest chair and express their agony in the form of unreserved groaning.

"My damn feet…"

"Your damn feet? I was workin' that hot stove and oven so long mah tits sweated through my undershirt an' I had to change!"

The way Donna slips out of her more proper personality when she's exhausted or frazzled has a certain charm to me. Leo as well if his sniggering was any indication.

"Good work today," I congratulate them honestly. They'd far more customers today and handled it leagues better than the one before. "I'd love to give you both some time to relax-"

"I hate this already." Leo complains without any real teeth.

"But I have even more work to do," I give him a reprising glower. Having worked a full service with them in a more proper way, part of me considers us a team. That makes my communication a smidge more honest as a result. "I still have eight scrolls I have to go triage… diagnose… figure out what the problem is, Leo," I rephrase a second time with a barely strangled cry. "So let's go over the service for the night and you two can turn in."

"Gladly."

"And by turn in, he means help me clean all these dishes. I ain't had time to clean any of 'em but the ones I needed."

"Oh for fuck's sake…"

Looking at the mountain of dishes that loom over, next to, and in front of the sink, I had to agree that a healthy dose of profanity was called for.

* * *

Day three ran even more smoothly than the day before. Donna has suggested streamlining their menu so that she wasn't as frantic in the kitchen trying to handle the variety. While Leo surprisingly didn't have any suggestions, he did grow into his role at a prodigious pace. Juggling the food and people at the door. He even handled someone who got irate at my two hour wait time since I had scrolls coming out of my ears, nose, and I'd probably find even more if I checked below my belt.

"Yer really upset my grandkid has too much work? What's goin' on? Everythin' ok with Kate?"

After pulling the man aside and talking things out with him, Leo invites him back for dinner the next day to talk things through some more. That level of customer endearment was more than good business sense. I think it proves that Leo is a good person at heart.

I continue to assemble the technician's Exodia by trading my service for a discount on the proprietary screwdrivers the scrolls used. These things were obscene. Pentagonal with little ridges that act like key tumblers to make sure unauthorized tools would have a bitch of a time in any attempt at a teardown.

Apple eat your heart out. Whoever made these screws managed to outpetty even you.

I use some of the money — lien, as it's called — to purchase a screw case from the same guy. It's basically a lunchbox with sixteen partitions to store screws. It'll help me with more advanced repairs in the future.

Day four is the first day things slow down. Word finally gets around to the local tech that I'm undercutting him and he responds by matching price. While there are still quite a few who would prefer to help out an aspiring young businessman, there are more who would rather stick to the older professional and not have a kid dink around with their valuable scroll.

Having been here for almost a week I've given up on fighting the kid thing. I won't take active advantage of it. I still refuse that. But I also can't be fucked to explain and then convince everyone under the sun that I'm not anywhere near as young as I look.

Day five has me help seven people in a full day's service. Shepherd's Rest experiences some falloff too, though nowhere near my degree. Maybe some scheme by the local tech? I doubt it. Leo would have heard through his grapevine and told me. I think it's a far more simple problem. One that I never had to consider living in big cities my whole life.

This place was running out of broken scrolls I could fix. The local tech has finally matched my price to avoid getting shoved out and the townsfolk mentality has been drawing more people to him.

So it's time to ask myself the obvious question. _Now what?_

I finish helping my final client of the night an hour before service ends. I use that time to think of my next steps. Frankly, I think I've proven my worth here. It shouldn't be hard to convince the two of them to let me stay on with this as a side business. I could even help with setup and cleanup to make Donna's job easier. That's my plan.

So when the last customer leaves for the night, the three of us sit down like normal and go over the day's ups and downs.

"We keep gettin' requests for steak, Don. 'Specially from the men."

"I know, I know. I'm not too use 'ta it, but I'll use the leftover from the guard tax to buy some cuts and start testing things out. You'll have 'ta taste test for me."

Leo grunts with little enthusiasm and nods. I guess Donna's not much one for red meats. I've learned a lot about the two of them over the past few days. Now I need to put it to use to convince them that I would be useful to take into their business.

"I'm happy for the two of you," I'm so sincere about it that it hurts a little. A few days ago things looked like they might not work out at all. Then within the same week they're better than ever. Seems that some problems are easier to fix than others. "But it's looking like my part of this endeavor might be coming to an end."

I'm not sure Leo knows what endeavor means if I'm being honest. That both of them have the same sullen look on their face means they get the gist of what I'm saying. I suppress the bubbling guilt growing inside me.

"Word is spreading that you two have relaunched the place. With Leo handling the front of house and putting his best foot forward, you're starting to get some regulars too. I think I've seen Doogle here every day since he started coming. Keep your thoughts toward the wellbeing of your customers, trust each other, and work together. Do that and Shepherd's Rest will be standing for years to come."

That's it. Honestly, these two knew how to do the job before I showed up. I didn't teach them anything they didn't know. All I did was raise the bar by setting standards they had let lapse.

"But… but what about you, deary?" Donna asks with a quiver in her lip.

I shove the rising guilt down once more. She's too easy. "What about me?" My chuckle comes out as a giggle. Goddamn prepubescent voice. "I've helped you two right yourselves and you both took off running. I don't think you need me to consult for you anymore. I'd offer to pay rent off the money I earn fixing things if I thought it would be enough."

Some mental math based on the price of the screw case told me that. Lien to dollars was similar enough. Maybe it's closer to a pound or a bit less in the way of a Canuck buck, but mostly similar. Helping between a hundred to two-hundred people and only being able to resolve half the problems, I'd made about two grand. Easily enough to pay for a room's rent for two months if it was similar to a cheap apartment.

Didn't change the fact that the well was dry. People wouldn't break enough things around here fast enough for me to make a living. Especially not with the other tech and I driving our prices down to compete with one another.

"So what? You gonna up and leave?" I can feel the negativity in Leo's question.

I shrug with my palms flat. "What can I do? Sometimes being a man is making the right choice. Sometimes being a man is knowing when you have no choice."

I'm manipulating them. Hard to call it anything else. We've bonded by working together for the past week. We've relied on each other to get the job done. The bond you form with the teammates you trust to face wave after wave of customers with you is hard to describe to someone who hasn't done it. It's like a family that you don't always like… so like a family. I guess it's not so hard.

"But if you had a choice?" Donna presses me hopefully.

And I got her. Same as I got Leo when all this started. Now I need to let her take the same path Leo did and swim herself to my shore. "What do you mean?"

"The two of us are gettin' old, kid. If I have to do another week like that one I don' think I'll make it and I know Don feels the same."

"I do," She quickly agrees. "What if you keep taking what work you can and help us out when you aren't busy? We got the spare rooms and…"

Donna goes on to say the verbatim of what I'd hoped for. My room and board taken care of, some payment besides for personal effects, letting me pocket the money I make on repairs. They must really want me to stay; they're offering everything I could want.

I could start a new life here. If I stuck with the two of them through thick and thin, it's likely they'd leave me the place in the end so I could keep it running. With a stable job and paycheck, I wouldn't have to worry quite so hard about where my next meal would come from. It'd be from the stoves of Shepherd's Rest. I could make new friends and companions. Maybe I'd even meet a new girl. Things would be different.

 _Or would they be exactly the same?_

"I… I couldn't make that choice." I'm biting my tongue as I try and force myself not to say those words.

"... What?" They both echo in unison.

You can make a lot of grand plans based on the firmest and most inarguable of logic, yet that human side of a person will sometimes make them play the fool regardless. I'd tried this life once already and I didn't like who I became. I won't do anything that risks me becoming that person again. Hardly anyone ever gets a truly clean slate and it looks like the human part of me can't abide by chiseling it the same way I had before.

"I'd like to avoid sounding cliché and yet I don't think I can. Hmmm… I think the easiest way to put it is that I'm looking for something I don't think I'll find here. I appreciate everything you've done for me," I bow my head and speak from the heart. I may have done my part to ensure success, but none of that would have mattered if these two didn't match my effort. "However, I must respectfully decline."

The ensuing silence lasts a very long ten seconds. If it goes on much longer I probably will offer a slew of new apologies. I don't get the chance.

"Heheh… Ha! Hahahahaha!" Leo's laughter quickly lost any semblance of restraint as he pulls off a perfect belly-laugh that sparks my envy. "Hahaho! This little… Hahahaha! I told you, Don."

Still sitting beside him at the table, Donna gives me an easy if also melancholy smile. "Guess you were right, Leo. He's too big for our small town."

I'm shocked silent. How could they see this coming? _I_ didn't see this coming! Me. The person who made the decision didn't even know he was going to make it!

"What's yer plan, kid? "

What a sensible question of him to ask. I wish I'd answered it before giving such a knee-jerk reaction! That's my second one in the past week if I count the absolute failure of character that is what got me here! Which, for the record, I do!

"I'll still have to make ends meet," I answer, more parsing a plan together aloud than having any actual sense of direction. "I can take the money I've earned here and put together a traveling kit."

"Ye know how to make one?"

"More or less… I'll need rations, a hatchet, some flint-"

Leo interrupts me with a scoff. "What are ye? My grandpa? Get yerself a dust lighter. New one of those'll last you 'til your old enough to sprout hair places other than your head."

I don't even need to see or hear Donna to know that Leo's stuck his foot in it. Instead, my thoughts go more towards items I'll require if I'm to take to the road. I'm the kind of guy who forgets socks when he packs for a trip three hours before the plane leaves. And a dust lighter? What the hell is that? Making a list would be hard enough for me in my world, let alone one where I don't know the tech. This could be bad.

"So I'll need one of these dust lighter. Maybe a pot for stews? No… no no. That's being too luxurious. Not like I know how to hunt anything to make a stew anyways. A pan might be a good idea to fry up something hot…"

I mumble to myself and make a shopping list as Donna and Leo bicker. Even with the five percent ambient attention I'm devoting to their squabble, I don't feel the same derogatory quality they had before. That had been a poisonous miasma whereas this was simple banter.

"Tell ye what," Leo says to me, breaking out of his conversation and breaking me from my own internal one. "How 'bout we make you a deal this time?"

"Oh?" I ask intrigued. "And what kind of deal would that be?" I mirror his question to me at the start of all of this.

"Ye're smart as a whip, but I don' think you know shi- doodle about makin' no pack. How 'bout we save you the hassle and make the best damn pack you could ask for an' we say fair's fair."

I'd kind of forgotten they owe me money. With a town that in no way broke a population of a thousand, I hadn't expected this much work to come my way. Seward or whatever his name was would probably make more if he lowered his prices- you know what? That's really not important.

"That works for me."

What I've done for them is worth more than a bag of travel supplies. I do know that. A relaunched business on the brink of failure for one measly bag? I'm not that bad at haggling. I'm only accepting for two reasons; I don't know what kind of gadgets and gizmos this world has and I need to apologize to them.

Our deal was made fairly and I've nothing to be ashamed of as far as it's concerned. My sin is something more recent. What I did minutes ago was nothing short of emotional engineering. I was scared of not having a place to live and let that fear compromise my values.

I don't want to manipulate people. That I'd started to requires penance.

Donna takes the initiative and rises out of her seat. "Then I'll start making that up for you with what we have on hand and then I'll head out in the mornin' to pick up whatever else you might need. Leo can take care of the day's dishes."

"Sounds like a- wait… what'd ya say, Don?"

Poor Leo.

* * *

I slept well through my final night at the Rest once I did get to sleep. That's not to say the nervousness of striking out on my own had no effect. It took me two hours of laying in bed before I actually managed to conk out. I'd say that's normal enough given the situation.

Right now I'm lying in bed stark naked beneath the covers. Since I only have the clothes I arrived in, I'd asked Donna if the village had a laundromat so I could get them cleaned. After giving me a look that had made me feel the child I appeared, she'd made sure to add a wash board and soap to her list before showing my city slicker ass how to use it.

There were super phones abounding and somehow I'm the weird one for expecting a simple washing machine.

There's a knock at the door and I'm immediately stricken with anxiety. "Everything is ready for you, deary. I've made your pack downstairs and I'll be leaving a fresh pair of travel clothes by the door. Bought you three pairs and four times as many socks. Can never have enough socks."

I can tell Donna's anxious too. Her nervousness gives me the backbone to stand up strong so I can abate her worries. "Thanks. I'll meet you downstairs once I'm dressed."

"We'll be waitin'." Donna assures me. I hear her footsteps going down the stairs.

I give it fifteen seconds after I can't hear them anymore before getting out of bed. Cracking open the door to make sure the coast is clear, I quickly grab the pile she's left for me and bring it inside.

The clothes are so plain they hardly warrant describing. Blue jeans, brown long-sleeved shirt, white socks, white briefs. The only thing with any character sits atop the pile; a pair of tan worker's boots. The thick rubber outsole will help absorb some shock and the textured grips are for traction. There's also the added benefit that the tiniest of puddles won't instantly seep into my shoe. When I finish dressing and lace up the boots I find them riding a bit above my ankles.

That a fairly standard shoe takes up a majority of my description tells more about this outfit's lack of character than I ever could. Oh well. Works for me. I'm not looking to stand out on the road or anywhere else.

I say my farewells to the room that's been my home for the past week. I stange hesitance to leave it behind strikes me. It doesn't take more than a moment for me to make sense of it. Shepherd's Rest is now known to me. Whatever awaits me outside these walls is the new.

Time to face the music I've made.

Leo and Donna are not sitting at the tables when I see them. Instead, both are standing in front of the counter. A giant pack that's all but bursting at the seams sits upon it. The truth that I'm leaving them and the Rest behind hits a bit harder. I stop myself from getting misty since it looks like Donna has that covered.

"I tried to think of everything. Got you that hatchet and a dust lighter. Threw in a flint just in case. One pot and one pan and I made sure to throw in some canned soup so ya had something' better than the hardtack and jelly Leo stuffed in there."

"Eat those soups early," Leo advises me. "Yer tastebuds might not thank me once ya've run out, but yer back will."

"I threw in some silverware too. Make sure to wash as you go, but I packed a few sets just in case."

"I grabbed a map and put 'er in the front pocket with yer scroll stuff an' hanged a compass from the zipper. Won't matter a lick so long as you follow the road east to Kuroyuri. They should have plenty o' work for you and might even have a bullhead off Mistral if you wan'."

It's funny in a very warm kind of way to see them fret over me like this. It sounds cheesy as all hell to say that I'm glad there's someone in this world who will miss me. Doesn't stop it from making me smile.

"With both of you putting it together, I'm sure it's more than I need." And, I worry, more than I can handle based on its size and presumable weight.

"Well it's not like I did much," Leo sniffs and looks away from me. "Don did most o' it. Alls I did was give it a man's touch at the end."

"A man's touch? Pah! What that thing needs is a woman's touch!" Donna harrumphs at her husband before turning to me with a much softer expression. "You sure all you want is two tarps and a roll? I can run out and find you a tent right now before you go, deary."

"It's fine. One below me to take care of the dirt. One above me to keep out the rain and snow."

That's a camping trick I picked up as a kid. A tent is unnecessary so long as you had two tarps. Even if you miraculously get snowed in without waking up you could simply dig yourself out when you did.

"Yer kiddin?" Leo asks in disbelief. "Ye didn't get the kid a tent?"

"I offered! He didn't want one."

"It's fi-"

"Kids too lazy nowadays to set up their own tent… wait a minute," Leo huffs and turns his back to me. He opens the small gate and stomps behind the counter, disappearing to the side room where I can't see him. I hear the sound of tinkling glasses and clanking pots as he rummages.

"Aha!" Leo celebrates. His heavy footsteps grow louder as he makes his way back to us. When he reappears he's holding a tightly bound rectangle of canvas with two handles attached to the top.

"I appreciate the thought. Really, I do. It's more that-"

"Don't worry bout settin' this thing up. This here's some Atlas tech that puts itself together if ya press and hold this here button," Leo turns the package around and I see a small red button. He proceeds to undo a backpack clip, thread the strap through the square's handles, and clip it back up so the square hangs suspended from it. "Ye still have to stake it down so it don' go flyin' off. Think we have a few of those-"

"I already packed those for his tarp." Donna interjected.

Leo blinked. "Huh? Those'r my stakes!"

"You were just gonna give 'em over you old coot!"

"It's the principle o' the matter!"

"Principle o' the matter?! I bought you that tent and you give it away?! Not that I think you shouldn't take it, deary."

"It's fine," I put myself in the middle of the two of them both figuratively and literally. I take on a small wolfish grin. "I don't need no fancy tent."

"You bein' smart with me, boy?"

I laugh. "A little," I give Leo a moment to grin with me before I somber up. "Really though, it's too much. You two help me make away from this town like a bandit. We're square without no fancy tent."

"Brat…" Leo sighs and shakes his head. "Look, do it as a favor ta me."

It's my turn to scoff. "You want me to nobly take an expensive tent off your hands for free? However could I be so selfless?"

Leo doesn't laugh. His melancholic expression and the way his shoulders slump inward and make himself a scoche smaller kick the sarcasm out of me.

"Ya know what's a tragedy? A nice sharp whittlin' knife cus it ain't ever carved a day in its life. The fishin' pole that's never known no fish. It's-"

"A fancy tent that's never been on an adventure?" I offer.

"Yea… ain't that a tragedy? I thought I'd fill that tent with all sorts o' memories from all kinds o' adventures… lookin' at the damn thing pisses me off!" Leo fumed, regaining some bluster. I knew that's all it was. "So since you're such a bandit, do me a damn favor and make it so I never have to see this thing again. You hear?"

It's ironic. As I nod my head in consent, donning my backpack with a fretful Donna's fussing over the straps before giving her a hug, and gave Leo a firm handshake between men to say farewell, I realized I'd failed. This whole time I thought I'd convinced them not to treat me like a kid, yet in the end Leo did exactly what one generation does to the next when he gave me that tent.

He was passing the torch to the next generation.

* * *

As the village disappears behind my back, I'm struck with a strange sense of whimsy. I'll admit that sense of adventure is diminished somewhat by the fairly heavy pack I'm hoisting on my shoulders. I feel like I'm carrying all the king's horses and all the king's men. By the end of the day, I'll probably need them to put me back together again.

That doesn't stop me from grinning like a fool.

"This is new."

I speak those three words to myself and understand the totality of their truth. I've never done this before. I have enough money to last me a while and Donna has packed enough food to ensure I make it to Kuroyuri even if I move at a snail's pace. Maybe this is a meaningless adventure that I've chosen to go on. Anyone would tell me that walking a road from town to village to city was the life of a hobo and something that shouldn't be glamorized.

The opinions of others couldn't take away this thrill of venturing into the new.

The past few days had been spent being absorbed in the work I knew. Now I found myself fascinating over the possibilities as I move from the known to the unknown. There was a detail I was forgetting. The past few days had been so busy that a certain degree of obsession was necessary to move things along as quickly as I had. The problem with any obsession, good or bad, was that it was far too easy to focus on something so hard that you fail to notice the dancing bear.

 _I must confess that I did not believe you had this in you._ A dulcet bass sounds within my skull.

Right… that…

In the face of threats more grounded in reality like hunger, I'd accomplished the impossible task of pushing this thing to the back of my mind. The thought gives me pause. Had I willed it out of existence until this point? More likely it had chosen not to speak for some unknowable reason.

"You've been awfully quiet lately." My words meet the air.

 _Far be it from me to interrupt someone when they're deciding what kind of man they will be._

I don't have anything of substance to say when he puts it like that. Id and ego had fought and the fact that I was lugging a ruck through the countryside instead of resting in a warm bed at the Rest told the result of that battle. Where food and refuge is a guarantee and not a gamble is where I should be. He's awfully on the nose.

"Did I decide who I could be? I'd say the only thing I decided was who I couldn't."

That comment seems to end the conversation. The shock of talking to him again wearing off, I continue to trudge down the dirt road with my heavy pack. The vibrant greens of the grassy plains as far as the eye can see bow down to the cool breeze that sweeps through. So close to the village, most of this area has been deforested to build and operate it. The roads in the village were properly paved at one point. Out here? No one had ever bothered to create anything more than a dirt trail.

Leo had said the trip to Kuroyuri was a fifty mile journey. If I can do ten miles a day, that'd be five days. There is the small detail that I've never rucked a day in my life. It's a damn heavy pack, but come on! There are people who run marathons in two hours. How bad could it be?

What I guess to be two hours into my trip — I can't tell since I don't have any working timepiece — I sincerely regret that question. My feet don't hurt. Oh no. That would be too simple a term to describe how my shoes feel like two iron maidens poking holes through my soles. As beautiful as the scenery is, doing nothing but admiring it for the past two hours as the pain gets progressively worse has diminished its novelty.

 _You may wish to pick up your pace. Unless such is your prerogative that you wish to to make this venture a nice round week._ He remarks dryly.

I snarl back at him. "Thanks for your invaluable observation."

I've never pitied the marines more in my life. I've heard their basic training concludes with a twelve hour hike in full gear followed by getting smoked like a pipe until the DS gets bored. I'd rather be part of the air force and march from one air conditioned room to the next.

And hey, that line of thought took up another twenty seconds. That's twenty seconds of walking time moved off the to-do list.

I'm not going to make it.

 _It makes you afraid... And fearing it does more harm… than facing it could._

Hearing his rumbling voice provides a welcome distraction, though not as much as the strange way he spoke. Repeating what he said in my head… huh. That's an ambiguous turn of phrase considering present circumstances. Repeating what he said in my head _in my head,_ I count the meter out.

"A haiku?"

 _Is that a question?_

I think he derives pleasure from being intentionally dense sometimes. "It's obviously a haiku. I meant it as 'why the haiku?'."

 _You appear as if you might derive some benefit from a stimulating conversation. I did so enjoy our first one. So?_

"For someone so articulate most of the time, you have a gift for being damnably vague at others."

I could _feel_ him rolling his eyes. An actual feeling of exasperation completely independent of my own. It was surreal in a very concerning way.

 _What am I?_ He asks with the same exasperation I felt from him. Not sensed, not noticed. Felt.

"That's the million dollar… lien question, isn't it? I don't think this is a dream or some type of illusion. If I'm right, that means you have some magical or possibly even godlike power to take me from my world and deposit me into this one."

A demon? A sorcerer? The devil? God? He could be any of them.

"You used a contract to take me here. Does that mean your power comes from contracts? Had I not made that deal with you, would that being of light have killed us both? Or is the contract merely a self-imposed restriction to make your existence interesting? The demons of Christian mythology would make deals for the souls of humans. Is that what you are? Maybe those stories are derivatives of your interactions with humankind."

The words come more easily than I thought they would. Looks like the addict in me had been dissecting this even when I hadn't been actively thinking about it.

"What you are may be something I can't fathom. Maybe you're nothing more than a bored human with powers. I don't know," I sigh and shrug. "What does it matter? We made a deal. We're on this journey together thanks to my big dumb mouth. Treating you like an enemy off the bat sounds far too exhausting. So for now, to me, what you are is the man in my car as I drive us to Kuroyuri. That good enough?"

The second I finish, his raucous laughter bursts in my head like the sound of a balloon stretched far past its limits. I feel myself steeped in a river of amusement in what I feel is not a laughing matter. I'm appreciative, though I know not what for. But above all that? A wave of relief hits me so hard it threatens to drown me.

 _A serviceable answer._ He finally replies, the odd chuckle still escaping him as he says it. _What I am to you matters far more than what I am. So heartfelt was you answer that I regret to inform you that wasn't what I meant to ask._

"Huh?" I mumble dumbly.

 _The haiku. What was it about?_

The… haiku? It takes me a minute to remember. " _That's_ what you were asking about?! Pain! I am, in fact, capable of understanding it was you telling me to stop bitching about my damn feet! It's so obviously about pain that I don't even know why you asked me!"

His booming laugh overtakes my thoughts once more as the tsunami of mirth hits me like a truck. He goes on for what feels like five minutes before he manages to speak — and even then he barely manages to do it without breaking into laughter again. _Haha… ho… I do believe it is your turn._

My turn? What does he… oh. Whatever. It can't be worse than thinking about my feet again. "A ledger that's kept… with ink that will never fade… so one won't forget."

 _Regret._

I click my tongue in disappointment. He didn't even take time to consider it. Wanting him to lose doesn't even make sense since it would just mean I'd made a nonsensical poem. But maybe I could… that might work.

"Your turn."

The relief I'd felt earlier trickles back in. It feels more like a dripping sink than the fireman's hose I was blasted with last time, yet I can still feel those drops of emotion.

That is how the two of us continue our journey to Kuroyuri. I forge onward while the two of us trade haikus. While my ruck is just as unruly as it was five minutes ago, It doesn't feel so heavy now. As a matter of fact, it's like a weight is lifted from my shoulders.

Ten more steps and that goes away. Goddamnit this thing is heavy!

* * *

 _ **One of the less profound ways I've ended a chapter. Sometimes your feet just hurt.**_

 _ **For those who aren't filled in with the RWBY minutia, Kuroyuri houses two of the eight main cast. Since I think everyone knows that Ruby and Yang live in Patch, that really only leaves one pair left. What I'm saying is...**_

 _ **We're finally getting interactions with non-oc's!**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Greetings and salutations! Welcome to the 20k megachapter of "holy fuck there was more content here than I expected". I honestly didn't think I was going to write this story past the first chapter, but it has been fun doing so for the few of you that read it. The 1 or 2 reviews I get mean the world to me since I know this story is never going to be as big as my others.**_

 _ **Tragic too since I'm enjoying it so much.**_

 _ **Enjoy our final push into canon RWBY. Let's see what ways the MC mucks it all up.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 4**

 **Mind Your Business**

You get used to blisters.

That is a horrifying fact I wish I never knew. Walk long enough to earn yourself a few of the blighters and you'll spend the night popping them, disinfecting, and patching them up with gauze and tape. Then you'll do it again the next day. And the next day… and the next day.

But I can assure you that around day five you're going to be sick of doing it. That there's no apparent benefit to doing so since you're assuredly going to make more the next day makes you question why you ever did in the first place. That immutable fact is what's caused me to abandon all hope and trudge on with naught but my preexisting bandages and two pairs of socks to absorb any seepage that might occur.

On the seventh day, I make the decision that the first thing I do when I get to Kuroyuri is buying twenty pairs of socks. Twice as many socks as clothes had been nowhere near enough. I would buy these sacred foot protectors until they outnumbered my clothes ten to one. I have no idea when that will be since we're already two days over the estimated five and this town has clearly not shown the decency of obliterating their forests as well as the last one. I've been like Red Riding Hood traveling through the woods for the past day now.

Other things I've realized is that Donna was trying to kill me with the soup. I'd thought to ignore Leo's advice about eating those as quick as I could when I first set out. By the end of the first day, I had cared less about the food I was eating and was far more concerned with getting the heaviest foods out of my pack. It wasn't only a matter of what could fit in my ruck. I'd hit the limits of my physicality. I've had to convince myself not to abandon this bulky and heavy cast-iron pot that I haven't used almost every night I've camped with it. Still haven't gotten rid of it yet.

Donna gave it to me. Throwing it away would be awfully rude… on the other hand. Cast. Iron.

"A simpering sound. It appears to serve others. But really serves you."

 _Flattery. I do believe that 'oneself' is more appropriate given the context. 'But it serves oneself'._

"I'm soooo sorry oh god of haikus."

He produces a rumbling hum. _This title does please me. I shall permit you to address me thusly henceforth._

"And I'd give you permission to bite me if I didn't think you'd find some way to literally come around and bite me."

Whether it was self-imposed or part of some contractual genie magic didn't really make much of a difference. So far, the only things he'd done fell within the purview of our established contract. His psyche being lodged in my brain somehow fully independent of my own was a rather liberal interpretation of my added clause that 'we do this together'. That was easy enough to figure out. This world was the venue he promised to provide, also easy. There were still other things less obvious. Like-

 _It really is about time._

I couldn't have said it better myself. After seven very long and even more painful days, the silhouette of a town is finally forming on the horizon. We're probably only a few hours outside of the treeline, meaning this town has done significantly less to cull the surrounding forest than Leo and Donna's.

From first making out that a city exists to being able to get a real look at it takes about forty-five minutes. Unlike the previous town which was a hodgepodge of different colored buildings of all shapes and sizes, Kuroyuri looks like it was pressed out of one giant mold. Houses painted pure white with reddened roofs litter the entire town. I can't make out a single unique building at a glance. The functional and intimidating palisade of the past town has no place in Kuroyuri's pristine architecture. An ornate Japanese styled white wall encircling the smaller town that's hardly a full man tall takes its place. It being so short is why I can even make out the buildings from a distance.

Creeping ever closer does reveal one similarity between the two towns. Both Kuroyuri and the previous town have a sentry posted at the gate. What differs is that this one actually acknowledges my existence. Not much more than a once over with his eyes up and down. That simple action manages to make his level of care a whole rung higher than the previous guard. What it doesn't do is satisfy my continually growing curiosity about why these towns have sentries stationed and the entrance in the first place.

Like I said before, the town is definitely smaller than Leo and Donna's. Right after entering the gate I can see the opposite wall off in the somewhat near distance. Fair being fair, this down does have a far more square and symmetrical appearance compared to the other town's oblong dysfunction. Kuroyuri looks like it was put together with a clear plan while the scattered houses and buildings by the Rest more followed the mantra of 'if there's space, I place'.

Smaller in size, Kuroyuri doesn't lack for people wandering the streets or doing business in them. The garb the people are wearing looks far more spendy than the functional clothes I've seen thus far. Clothes sewed from various colors of silk, hats, and jewelry might be more commonplace than not on the people I can see. While the people before appeared more concerned with survival, the residents of Kuroyuri have developed a taste for living.

"Hopefully those open pockets will mean a good haul." I mutter to myself.

The only response my passenger gives me is a soft chuckle. Mildly curious what he found funny about that, I prepare to act like a Mormon on a mission and knock down some doors. Glitches beware. I am here to end you and your kind.

* * *

That hope has proven to be entirely in vain.

"Wish I could help you out. Doesn't change that I can't." The man dismisses me from his almost uniquely brown-roofed house.

"If you don't have any tech that needs looking at, I can also clean or labor."

And the door closes in my face without another word.

 _Zero for thirty-two._ He comments dryly.

"Why thank you for the reminder," I gripe quietly. I don't want anyone in the town thinking I'm schizophrenic. I can't imagine that being good for business. "Your informing me of the tally after every failure is sure to improve my performance."

 _You are quite welcome._

I gnash my teeth and say nothing. Being something of an antagonist myself, I know when someone is trying to get a rise out of me. I refuse to give him any more satisfaction than I already have. I'd like to take some consolation in the fact that I'm now seeing brown roofed houses instead of strictly red-roofed ones. Sadly, the minute joy I'm able to derive from the 'varied' architecture is heavily outweighed by the detail that Kuroyuri has thus been a giant waste of time. If this keeps up I'll have to dip into my reserves to continue onward to the next town.

Instead of giving my passenger any satisfaction by taking the bait, I decide to make conversation instead. "Fancy as this place look, there doesn't appear to be much work."

 _This pristine and polished look they have gone through so much effort to perfect is what should have told you that. Uniform houses, decorative walls, the lack of any signs of the impoverished. Those are not the qualities a fixer-by-trade wishes to see in a town._

I'd love to disagree with him, but as I knock on another door and clearly hear someone shuffling behind it — likely looking through the peephole — and then going still as can be in the already failed hope that I won't notice him, I find it difficult to argue. I turn away and skip the house. He might be right about Kuroyuri. This place is so perfect that I can even hear the raucous laughter of children from a nearby alley… and another kid standing by the mouth of it pulling off the one-two punch of looking simultaneously nervous and guilty.

A combination of curiosity and dejectedness pulls me away from my job hunt and I walk over to the guilty kid. I think he's a boy, though the way his jet-black hair is pinned into an impressively flat bun at the back of his head gives me some pause in that assessment. His tea-green shirt isn't done justice described as such. The shoulder areas of it are maroon while the cuffs of his sleeves lighten to pale pink. A black collar trimmed with golden fabric makes me think his shirt is worth more than all my clothes combined. His loose-fitting white slacks have much less personality yet look no less expensive. His ensemble is tied up, quite literally, with some sort of black moccasin wrap around his feet and a good two inches past his ankle. He looks all of ten years old, maybe nine.

He fails to notice me as I get behind him and take a peek at what he's looking at.

It doesn't take long to understand where that fearful guilty look came from. Three boys around the same age wearing shorts, two of whom are in tanktops while the other has a simple t-shirt, are looming over someone and laughing. I can't make out the last person through the bodies of the three boys obfuscating them. Can't say the whole situation adds up to four friends shooting the shit. Not with the way this girly boy is looking at them.

"Where'd ya get that bread? I didn't see you pay for it, thief!"

Survey says; not friends shooting the shit.

"No, look! It's all moldy!" One of the other boys chimes in with a substantially more squeaky voice.

"I think she got it from the trash!" The first boy who I'm willing to bet is the leader.

"Let me see!" The third boy demands.

I don't even have time to wonder why the hell the kid wants to see moldy fucking bread before he reaches out to grab it. He retracts his hand even more quickly.

"Ow! She bit me!" The kid shouts in pain. He looks at his hand in shock. Shock which quickly transforms into disgust as he pushes the offender to the ground, her bread bouncing away from her.

Now that the person has been shoved away, I'm finally able to make _her_ out. The girl's hair is shoulder-length with a creamy-orange color to my eyes. I specify because it's hard to tell what color her hair actually is with all the dirt matting it together. Below her rat's nest I'm liberally calling hair is an equally ratty white shirt with a pink heart in the center that's not completely covered by the black unbuttoned hoody she has on. The hoodie is so undersized that her white shirt — and that's a term I'm using very liberally as well — sticks out a good two inches past it. Pink shorts go down to her knees and dusty white socks paired with muddy pink and white shoes finish it off. Her clothes, hair, skin; everything about her is dirty.

Except for her eyes. Two pools of the richest seafoam blue I've ever seen.

The girl quickly recovers from the forced fall and immediately scrambles for the moldy bread, pouncing on it like an NFL player covering a fumble despite the red scrapes on her knees.

It's absolutely tragic.

The three bullies are still talking, it's just that I've stopped listening. I take a few seconds to half-ass a plan, primarily because that's the limit of how much more of this I can stomach before I give in to baser impulses and rabbit punch the lot of them. Beating on kids for being dumbasses is a responsibility I don't intend to deprive their parents of. It's bad for business.

Seven seconds and I've assembled something workable enough. And that plan starts with two loud claps.

Instead of shocking the kids, I shock myself when my clap makes something beside me jump. Right, I forgot there was another kid here. I look into his bizarre pink eyes, give a reassuring smile, and then turn back towards the task at hand and stride forward as I pull my pack off my back.

"Alrighty you three. Simmer down."

"... What?" The three boys respond in unison.

"It means cool it, you illiterate fudgecicles." I give a grandiose sigh as I continue rummaging through the front pouch. There's the map, there's my screwdriver. Where is it?

"I think he's being mean to us." The squeaky boy whispers loudly to the leader.

"Hey, punk! My friend thinks you're being a jerk. You're not that dumb, are you?"

"Of course I'm not," I hold one hand up in surrender as I rummage with the other. Where the hell did Donna put this thing? "Not yet at least."

"What does that mean?" Shoving kid asks.

"It means that first I'm going to ask you nicely to leave that girl alone. She obviously didn't steal that loaf of bread or it would look a lot nicer than it does. You've had your fun, now I think you should go home."

These brats are not my problem. I don't care if they keep being little shits for the rest of their life. Their parents can sort that out or they can pay the price later when they become the most obnoxious teenagers to ever punish those who birthed them. That being said, this girl isn't my problem either. I'm not helping her for brownie points or because she's a girl. I don't believe in that crap.

I'm helping her for me. _I_ don't like what's happening so _I_ am going to do something about it for _my_ peace of mind.

"You trying to tell us what to do?"

"As of now, no. I'm telling you what you _should_ do. Any chance you'll listen?"

"I think you're telling us what to do." The leader sneered.

"You kids need to clean the lint out of your ears," I tsk and shake my head. "Telling you _what_ to do would constitute a command. I'm telling you what you _should_ do, which is more akin to providing advice. If you can stifle your youthful desire for rebellion, I can assure you that you'll be happier in the end by making the intelligent decision and listening."

I probably used about seven words there they didn't understand despite dumbing things down considerably. That's fine. I'm more stalling for time than actually trying to convince them. If you're the type that's going to listen to sense, I don't think you make it to the point of trying to steal some poor orphan's bread. Right now, I'm groping around this front pocket trying to feel for my prize since I can't bloody find it visually. The rougher approach turns out to be the right call as the familiar firmness of metal and glass is easy enough to recognize even through a layer of mesh.

Donna put it in a subpocket of the front pocket to keep it safe. That was considerate of her.

The short daze my vocabulary had caused wears off. "I think you're asking to fight."

I find the zipper. "You're trying to fight a little girl three on one," I remind them as I undo the zipper. "I don't think you need my invitation to fight. So long as I am doing the inviting though, could you hold still for one second?"

"Huh?"

I quickly withdraw my hand from my backpack, hold it up to my face, and press a button. Nothing happens.

The important thing is that they don't know that.

"They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I've never been much of a believer in that, but boy if this isn't putting that to the test."

"What'd you do?" Squeaky asks.

"As you may have guessed by the fact that there's a scroll in my hand," I wave the very much nonfunctional device I'm holding for good measure. "I've taken a picture of three boys huddled around a poor girl they've knocked to the ground. What would your mothers say?"

The three of them immediately share some fearful glances. Never a child born that doesn't fear their mother and her dreaded wooden spoon. Though the other two continue to persist with their fear, the leader in the center recovers. "They won't say anything 'cus you're gonna give us that scroll."

I stare down the leader. "Oh, I really don't think I am."

He grins viciously and cracks his knuckles. Well, he tries to like some punk kid imitating a movie character. There's no actual popping sound. "Then we're gonna beat you up and take it."

I applaud them, scroll still in hand. The light slap of flesh on faux-glass making a hollow knock. "A genius strategy consistent with your previous values. You see no immorality in the initiation of force, after all. It wouldn't make sense for you not to try and beat me up and take the scroll."

"Wait… are you saying we _should_ beat you up?" Shoving kid in the t-shirt asks.

"No wonder you three do this," I shake my head. "If you're not listening to me now I bet you don't listen to your parents either. What I said was that since you're terrible brats I can't see any reason why you wouldn't try to beat me up."

The leader growls. "Kick his butt."

"Yip ip ip ip," I slide backward and hold out a placating hand. "There is, however, something you're not considering."

"What?" Squeaky asks.

The leader snaps at him. "Drew!"

I pounce. "We're right next to a pretty busy part of the town. The only reason no one has come is that nobody has asked. I'd say it's nigh time we rectify that state of affairs, wouldn't you?"

And one more for the road. "Huh?"

"HELP! THREE MEN ARE ATTACKING ME!" I yell at the top of my lungs. The three boys immediately panic, and not in a good way. They can't decide between kicking the crap out of me and running away. I better take care of that. "Now I might not know your parents, but if you're still here by the time a grownup shows up I'll-"

Regrettably, I don't get the chance to explain my scheme because the three of them start booking it down an even smaller sub-alley. Probably for the best since that plan would actually require a functional scroll instead of the broken one I traded for back at the Rest.

I don't like lying. I never once said I wasn't good at it, not that these brats are a high bar to judge by.

"That's that." I wipe my hands of the affair. All that's left is cleanup. I do a quick scan before anything else. Huh. Good thing those kids bought my bluff. I can't believe no adults have shown up yet. I don't see the watching boy either. Oh well. Picking up my pack and pocketing the scroll for now, I walk towards the orphan girl still sitting on the ground and offer her a hand up. "You okay?"

Probably shouldn't have pushed my hand next to the face of a girl who just bit someone. Luck is on my side today, as the most negative thing that happens is the girl eyeing my hand warily. I wait a good fifteen seconds, holding it out the whole time. I'm about to withdraw it when she nervously starts reaching for it. After one last moment's hesitation, she grabs it and I slowly pull her up.

"T-thanks." She mumbles, looking anywhere but my eyes.

"Don't worry about it. Your bread make it through alright?"

The girl immediately takes her hand back and clutches the bread to her chest like I might steal it. I quickly take a step back and hold two open palms in front of me in the universal gesture of peace.

"I don't want your bread," I quickly assure her. "I was actually thinking you might help me out."

I hold out a calm, sure, placating hand as I remove my pack once again and open the main compartment. The girl watches me closely, her sharp and distrustful eyes demonstrating a precise contrast to the rest of her unkempt appearance. Reaching down into it, I squeeze my hand past the pot occupying most of the space and snake my hand into it. It's a bitch to pack this thing because I've got to pack the pot with goods, flip it over vertically so that it fits, and then put it back into the pack without anything spilling out of the pot.

Oh, the mundanities of travel.

Since I've been on the road for the past seven days which has cleared out quite a bit of the bulkier rations. Of course, that wasn't to say I didn't have a little bit left.

"There we are!" I find what I'm looking for and pull it out of my pack far more forcefully than carefully. My single remaining can of chunky chicken noodle. I hold it out for her to grab for a few seconds. Rolling my eyes when she doesn't, I hold out one more cautioning hand, grab her arm lightly, pull it to me just a hair, and then place the can in her hand. "Here you go."

She quickly pulls her hand back to her body, now embracing the bread and soup both. "What do you want me to do for it?"

"Eh? Nothing."

For the first time, she really looks at me. The worry that had plagued them is replaced by the starkly innocent confusion of the child she is. Those eyes of a tropical sea are something else. "You said you wanted me to do something for you."

"And you're doing it," I assure her. "That soup has been a pain in my ass since the day I got it. I've gotten so many blisters lugging cans like that around, my foot has a mind of its own whenever I see one. I can barely resist the urge to drop kick each and every one of them. So you take that soup off my hands and you'll be saving me another potential injury. I can't afford any more of those where my feet are concerned."

Her face scrunches up as she looks at me suspiciously. "I'm helping by eating your soup?"

"Yes, mam."

"You're a liar."

"Hey hey hey," I take my finger and bop her on the nose once. She blinks twice, going crosseyed as she tries to look at her nose. "That's an awful thing to say to the guy who just helped you out of a bind. How 'bout you take care of that soup for me and I'll call us even."

"You helped me… and if I eat your soup... we'll be even?

"That's about the size of it… by which I mean yes."

"... Ok…"

"Good girl," I reach my hand out and tussle her hair. It's even dirtier than I thought. I'll need to wash my hand after this. "Pull on the tab to open it up. Then you can heat it up in a pot or eat it cold. I eat it cold," I lean in to whisper it to her like it's a secret. "I'm really lazy. Don't tell anyone."

She giggles. It's the first time I've seen her smile and she quickly takes a turn towards bashful. "I won't, but I like hot food."

"That's what's great about soup," I give her one last tussle and turn away. "Eat it hot, eat it cold, still tastes like soup either way. You take care!"

Two steps. I get two steps before the girl's arm strikes out like a viper, clamping down on the sleeve of my nice shirt. I stop. Damn. I was trying to get out before this happened.

"Uh-ummm… I d-don't have a way to heat it up. Could you help me?"

No. No, I can not. That's all I need to say. This little miss here is practically waving her flag. I'm not in a position financially or emotionally to have a dependent. I need to say no. She's shy. She'll accept it. Just say the damn words you coward and you're in the clear.

"I'm busy right now," I hedge. "I've got to look for work while it's still light out. Sorry, but-"

"I can wait!" She cuts me off. Her stomach grumbles its protest as she says it and yet the girl maintains her resolve.

And this is why you commit from the start. I can't think of anything that I need less than to start a roving band of orphans and other misfit toys. Now I have to bite the bullet.

"I won't be done until it's dark out. You sure you don't want to eat it now?" One last try to weasel out of this?

She shakes her head a million miles a minute. "Nuh-uh NUH-UH! I'll wait!"

Oh, you fucking pussy. If I didn't have the balls to do it before, I sure as shit don't now. I give a silent groan of defeat and raise the flag of surrender. "Fine… I'll try and wrap up as soon as the sun goes down. I'll be heading outside the town to camp, so if you're by the main gate around then I'll look for you."

She looks at me, her eyes shimmering. "Promise?"

"Cross my heart," I give in resignedly as I slash an x over my chest with my finger.

Clearly content as can be, the girl takes off towards the gate with both her bounties squeezed tight to her chest. It looks like she's going to post herself there like a sentry so she can't miss me. Sweet kid. But it's time to-

"Hold it!" I shout right as she turns the corner. Her feet dig into the ground as she comes to a skidding stop before quickly jogging back. "What's your name?"

"Nora!" She replies without a second thought.

"Thanks." I nod and wave her off. She hesitates for a second and then plods off again, disappearing from sight.

A few seconds later she reappears, her eyes peeking around the corner of the building to make sure there was nothing else. I give her a shooing gesture and she turns tail and runs.

What a weird kid.

I heft my ruck back onto my back and make my way out of the alley. A bit curious myself I look to the left and see that no one is there. I look to my right and do see one lone adult with black hair and a like-colored beard. He's wearing a similar top to the watching kid I saw earlier, opting for a more forested green look and lacks any of the fancier hues of red and pink the child's had. He's watching me with a firm expression.

I've only done one thing worthy of attention, so either his being here is a coincidence or he is the slowest responder humanly conceivable. Since I now lack both the photo of the crime and any of the people who might testify on my behalf, I make the call that it's time to make myself scarce.

I offer the man a polite 'how do you do?' wave before fast-walking in the opposite direction. He doesn't make any moves to pursue me, though he does watch me until I turn the corner.

Once I'm out of sight and hopefully out of his mind, I slow down my pace. That was an interesting break from the drudgery of the day. Still, that drudgery remains to be done.

"Might as well get to it." I say in the hope that it will provide me with the motivation to do exactly that. Turns out to be a big fat negatory. I muscle through the lack of desire and knock on the next red door in the neighborhood.

And get ignored. Super...

* * *

In my attempt to keep a positive attitude while doing my rounds in Kuroyuri, I forced myself to remember that the job hunt wasn't going any worse than it had been previously. It wasn't going any better either…

But hey, not any worse!

My next victim is a house that looks exactly the same as every other house in this cookie-cutter Japan knockoff. This time it's the one-story model instead of the two. A simple with building with a swept red roof to wick away the rain. Of all the houses I've visited so far this is probably the most unique. Not because of anything architectural, heaven forbid. I feel the geopolitical structure of the town would crumble if any singular building was not completely uniform with the rest.

It's the adjacent garden within its boundaries that's large enough to fit another house, maybe a house and a half. I'm intuiting it's a garden from its appearance alone. Gardening tools are leaning upright against the wall of the house. I guess theft isn't a problem here. The earthy mounds of the garden don't appear to be planted… do I dare to hope?

I prepare myself for yet another favor and knock on the door. One, two, three. A triplet of knocks occupying a single second. Respectful, noninvasive, and loud. It lets them know I'm here and gives the warning that if they don't want to deal they can pretend I'm not here like so many before.

An opening door reveals that the matron here is, at the very least, more welcoming than many of her fellow folk merely by virtue of opening her door. The woman who answers gives me a smile, check, opens the door a bit wider when she sees me, check, and is nice and easy on the eyes.

Check, check, check.

"What can I help you with, young man?" She asks warmly.

After initial impressions, the first thing I notice is the dress she's wearing. As with the watching kid and the bearded man before, the primary color is a shade of green. The child's was tea, the man's was the forest-green of a fir, and hers was the vibrant green of a jade stone. What doesn't differ is the maroon cuffs and maroon trim at the bottom of her dress that matches the boy's. I'm beginning to think that's a theme of the clothes in this town until I notice her eyes. While the muted maroon color of her hair is certainly attractive, it's the light pink shine of her eyes and the twinkle they have that draws my attention.

Didn't that kid have pink eyes? Is that a normal eye color here?

Realizing I've spent a little too much time taking in the woman before me, I cough into my tiny fist. "I'm a technician passing through town and I'm looking for work. I wanted to know if you had any scrolls or other devices that may be in need of a tune-up?"

"Hmmm…" The lady hums into her hand, actually considering my question. If how pleasant she is to look at didn't put her in my top ten percent of potential customers, the effort of bothering to think about things did. "I'm sorry to say that I don't think there is."

"I'm also willing to labor. Any work you might need me to handle for you?" I ask with the tiniest twinge of desperation in my voice. Noticing her lips purse nervously, I quickly add. "I noticed your garden was unplanted. I could work that for you."

I swear to god if another adult thinks I'm propositioning them, I'm going to lose it. Then again… if she takes it that way and isn't opposed…

The lady gives me a small sad sigh. "That's kind of you to offer. However, that garden is for growing herbs. They're very particular about the way they're planted and I can't afford to take any chances with them. I'd offer to let you till the soil for me if you'd asked ten minutes ago, but my husband wants our son to do it. I hope you understand."

It's unfortunate, but I do. I'm offering skilled technical expertise and unskilled labor. What discipline she needs in skilled labor I don't possess and she already has the unskilled portion covered. Nothing I can do about that.

"I do. Thank you for your time." I bow my head and turn away.

She speaks up. "If you need food or lien, I'm sure I can find some to-"

"No thank you." I cut her off firmly. "I'm looking for work, not charity," I've had more than my fill of that to last me a lifetime. "Have a great day."

I can feel her hesitation at my back even as she begrudgingly starts closing the door behind me.

"Who was that?" I can faintly make out a masculine voice right before the door closes. I don't hear her response as I round the corner of their entryway and start walking towards the next white house.

But wow! This house has _two_ red roofs. One halfway to the top and another capping the building off. A roof for each story! The same as every other two-story house! I feel the architect who designed these is due for an existential crisis. Hopefully it would benefit his aesthetic sense.

"This is why I was never any good at sales." I take a moment to indulge in a little self-pity. Getting told no over and over again and getting the door shut in your face is emotionally exhausting.

I'd like nothing more than to buy the supplies I need and hit the road again. This town is bumming me out. But if I leave a hundred, fifty, or even twenty lien on the table, that's coming right out of my savings. Spending a day or two hitting the pavement is the most cost-efficient thing in the long term even if I come up with nothing in Kuroyuri. Knowing that I should is doing little to persuade me to knock on this next door, even with its two roofs.

I wouldn't before I came here.

 _That_ is enough to get me knocking on the next door. I walk up, triplet knock, hold… hold... nothing. Not even the sound of someone trying to ignore me.

"Ms. Yazo is at her stall in the town square," A calm raspy voice from behind has me spinning on my heels. I am not a fan of people sneaking up on me. I don't know if my recognizing him makes me more or less comfortable. "You may be able to ask her for work there. Unfortunately for you, I doubt she'll have anything."

"That's a recurring theme in Kuroyuri. I'm learning a town can't look this nice unless every job that needs doing already has someone doing it."

"Not every job," He eyes me stoically. "If we had taken care of everything we would not have required a stranger to step in on behalf of that little girl."

I slip my right foot back the smallest of margins so that I'm no longer facing him directly and my body is at a slight angle. "Aww shucks. I didn't think anyone saw that."

I don't trust this guy. He was obviously there when those kids were bullying Nora and that means he was there when I called for help and chose to do nothing. Much as I want to, what I can't do is call him out on that. If he means me harm then doing so is a direct invitation to conflict. An honest man would likely take what I'd said and explain why it was that he didn't intervene. If he dodges the subject entirely, I'll raise my guard even higher.

"Not for the whole thing. I saw my son standing at the mouth of an alley. I went to see what he was watching and found a brave young man rescuing a damsel from three troublemakers."

I should be relieved that his response indicates he likely doesn't mean me harm. Instead, I snort a little too loudly and receive an arched black eyebrow for my transgression. "All you saw was one man acting in self-interest against three boys doing the same."

That solves the mystery of where the watching kid went. His father shows up, extricates him from the situation, and then stays to make sure it resolves itself peacefully and so he can step in if it doesn't. I don't begrudge him that.

My biggest miff is more a slight resentment towards my passenger for this seemingly endless misunderstanding of my age. Because of that, I don't expect this man to treat me like an equal, but I'm not going to lower myself by acting like a kid.

"Then perhaps I can persuade you to act in self-interest once more for both our benefits."

I acknowledge the warning signs I'm seeing in the man. His lips had tightened as he spoke. His right hand was beginning to clench before he forced himself to stop. Both are signs that he's irate. When a good part of your job is managing customer expectations and dealing with their temperament, you learn the warning signs of a volcano switching from dormant to active.

All I can do now is to play this out as politely as possible. "I am looking for work. If there's any skilled technical support you need then I might be able to help out. I can also try to do any menial labor within my capacity."

The man hums and nods, the bottom of his black beard brushing up against the collar of his clothing. His pale gold eyes look me up and down. "What I would like to ask of you is twofold. Do you think you can work in a field?"

"I should be able to." I reply. I'd offered much the same to the lady at the last house, after all.

"Do you think you could speak to my son while doing so?"

Now that's a curveball. I feel the built-up tension seep out of my body as the pieces of this strange puzzle fall into place. I should check to make sure I'm not misunderstanding. "Are you disappointed in him for not helping Nor- the girl?"

The man's neutral face falls into a frown. He nods again. "Ren is a young boy, a good boy, yet I am concerned. I did not think him capable of watching a girl his own age be tormented without doing anything. I thought I'd raised him to do better."

"I'm more than comfortable offering some philosophical perspective," I admit openly. Lord knows I've done so in the past. "It's more that I'm curious as to why you'd outsource this to someone you don't know. Teaching one's son to be a man lies firmly within the purview of a father."

"You've quite the vocabulary."

The way he says that makes my eyes want to narrow; like he sees something beyond what I've said. I smother that impulse and lee my genially blank expression. A small smile that says nothing.

"I'm well-read." I reply simply.

Control in a conversation is like control in a relationship. Whoever cares the least often has the leverage. I asked him a question that he ignored to try and learn more about me. I've technically responded to that and somewhat fulfilled his prompt to learn more about me, even if I haven't done so in a way he'll find satisfying. If he doesn't pick up the slack and continue the conversation then I'll wish him a good day and be on my way. If he lobs the ball back to my side of the court then I'll do the same for a few rounds until an excuse about getting back to work holds some water.

I admit that I'm probably overplaying things here. Can't fault a guy for being cautious.

"I have chastised my son as a father should," The man decides to give ground in the hopes of getting some. "What I can't know is if my son has taken it to heart. I work a dangerous job hunting these forests. Ren will become the man of our family. A reasonable sum is a small price to pay for any assistance to make sure he becomes that man."

I hum. Not out of any impulse. It's a considerate gesture to let the man know I'm thinking. His is… an unorthodox parenting technique to say the least. I can't say he's wrong to think as he is. Finding it strange doesn't make it wrong.

"Why have me talk to him? Exposing your child to a potentially unsafe element is something most parents would shy away from. Make sure you're not drinking poison to quench your thirst."

The man laughs a raspy chuckle. "It's hardly a wonder you've been unsuccessful finding work in our town."

I chuckle back. "I can't say I'd normally sell against myself this strongly. It's more that I've seen my fair share of parents who can't take responsibility for what their children become. I'll take you up on your offer if you're sure. I'm saying all this because you should always be sure when it comes to your kid. I don't want to shoulder any potential blame for what happens to him."

"Spoken like someone who has never had a child of their own," The man smiles and offers his hand to shake. "We parents don't know a third as much as we wish we did. Often the most we can do is make the best judgement we can about what feels right at the time. I believe that Ren looks up to me a little too much and he may listen to my words without understanding them. I believe that he might open up to someone a little less old too. And I don't believe the boy who helped that girl in the alley would mean my son harm."

I shrug my shoulders and hold up my palms in defeat. "Making the best decision we can think of with the information we have on hand. What more can you do?"

Think harder, study more, consider things from another perspective, remove yourself from the situation, and countless other things. There are hundreds of other things people can do to make a better choice than using what they have on hand and hoping for the best. However, I have no obligation to tell him that. I've fulfilled what I view as my obligation of a warning. I wouldn't let a stranger muck about in my hypothetical child's philosophy. If he wants to roll that dice, that's on him. Besides, he's right. I am going to try and help this kid as much as I can.

I step forward five paces, take his hand, and shake once.

"Then we've got a deal."

The man gives a more normal paternalistic smile which I return with a practiced service one. Guess I found myself a job. Might as well get to it while it's still day out.

"Lead the way."

After a brief moment of surprise, the man chuckles. Did I say something funny? Eh, whatever. I've learned that understanding the joke is far less important than letting your client enjoy it. Nothing kills a joke dead better than asking someone to explain it to you. So I say nothing, wait for the man to finish laughing, and then follow his lead as he takes me to his home.

…

The woman's house I'd visited minutes before.

And now I get the joke.

* * *

The man was kind enough to let me change in his house's bathroom. I've only got one pair of nicer clothes and hoeing dirt for a few hours in the sun sounds like a perfect way to ruin them. I've changed into one of the two pairs of used travel clothes, leaving the still clean pair just in case. Brown shirt, blue jeans, tan boots.

I'm leaning against the side of the house with the farming equipment on my left and my pack leaned up against the wall on my right. When I hear the door open once more and two sets of footsteps exiting I push myself off the wall and turn to face the garden's entrance.

The father and son appear together with the latter lagging slightly behind. Watching kid — I believe his father called him Ren — looks like someone killed his cat. That's a good thing to note. A child's comfortability with disappointing their parents can tell you a lot. Initial impressions are that he probably didn't intervene because he was scared.

"I thank you for your patience," The man's stiff vernacular is said with a large degree of comfort. He's very used to being polite and controlling himself. Assuming he instills similar values in his son, that again points to fear as being the boy's primary motivator. "This is my son, Lie Ren. Ren, this is the boy I hired to help prepare the garden for your mother."

Either Ren is real stranger shy or he's still hung up on leaving Nora out to dry. The kid is literally hiding behind his father's leg. Something the father disallows by putting a firm hand on his back and gently pushing him forward.

Guess I'll initiate things here. "Pleasure to meet you, Ren."

Contrary to my expectations, I don't have to wait long for a reply. "You're the boy from the alley."

Kid sounds guilty when he says it. Finding out if that guilt is from the incident or his father's disappointment will be one of the staging points of this little op.

"You got me. Ran into your dad on the road and he thought you could use a little help prepping this garden for your mother."

Ren looks to his father hopefully. I can see the amusement in his father's eyes at how transparent his son is being about having his workload lessened, but the man quickly tempers it to a stern facade. It's nice to see that the man is taking no joy in disciplining his kid. "That I did. While he is working here he is a guest of the Lie household. You should show him every courtesy a guest deserves. Is that understood, Ren?"

The boy hesitates and then nods once.

"Good. Let me explain what you're going to be doing today."

As someone who has barely managed to maintain a potted plant in his life, I listen with keen interest to what the man has to say. That turns out to be a needless effort since his explanation lasts all of ten seconds. We're to dig up the whole yard about a foot deep and mix the dry topsoil with the more loamy earth underneath. He'll be doing a manure passthrough after we've finished before his wife finally plants everything. My job is to dig things with a shovel.

And thus my grey collar becomes blue.

I do learn something new, at least. Technically it's two things. We're prepping the garden to plant right now because the best time to plant is after spring's second frost, obviously meaning that time is now. You'd probably think I would have noticed that in the literal hundreds of scrolls I handled at the Rest that assuredly all had built-in calendars, to which I'd reply that you're very much underestimating the tunnel-vision of IT. I was preoccupied with a few other details. Sue me.

After that brief explanation I grab a shovel that's got a few inches on me and settle into my new task; using my blistered as shit foot to jam this shovel into the ground as means to upheave the earth.

This is fine.

Ren has silently fallen into the work as well. Without a word, we divvied up the small plot into lengthwise halves. I'm working my half by width so that when I make it to the end of the plot, I'm done. Ren has decided to do it in two columns and wind his way back.

My method that saves twenty or so steps is clearly superior.

Twenty minutes in and we're still level with each other. An optimist would say I'm working twice as fast while a pessimist would say Ren is working twice as slow. I say that I really don't want to pick up his slack. Other than that, I haven't said a word. I've only finished around a quarter of my side and I'm not in any rush to get the conversation going.

I don't know if there's anything less effective to cram down someone's throat than philosophy. The number of times someone has read someone's Facebook rant about politics and promptly changed their political affiliation can probably be counted on one hand for the entire world. Has anyone ever been in traffic blocked by an activist group and felt the burning need to know what they stand for? Changing your beliefs and accepting new opinions is something that must be done voluntarily. It can't be forced, don't try. I can assure anyone who would think about it that it is a colossal waste of time for all parties involved.

I'll wait for the kid to come to me. He's got to want to chat eventually. Right?

More than halfway through my side of the yard and I'm starting to question that. I've worked customer service for nearly a decade. Not talking to people at a job is unequivocally a vacation, yet this lack of conversation is impeding the real reason I'm here. It's a dense conversation we need to chew through and I don't have much longer to stall. I'll lead off with something casual.

"So how 'bout them-"

"It's a very nice-"

Ren and I both speak at once, both stop ourselves, then both laugh together. He laughs with his whole body whereas I do so with my gut.

"Ha! I knew I was looking for a way to break the ice, but why were you?" I ask him.

He leans on his shovel embedded in the ground, fancy green shirt marred with dirt and his face similarly afflicted with embarrassment. "I thought you wouldn't want to talk to me… but I was getting bored."

I snort and wave that idea away. "Why the heck wouldn't I want to talk to you? This is the perfect work for a good conversation."

"Not the work," Ren's mirth wore off as his smile turned upside down. "I thought you wouldn't want to talk to me."

"I just met you. Bit early to decide whether or not I want to talk to you." I pick up my shovel and resume digging. Ren does the same.

"You didn't just meet me. We met before."

"At the alley? Think I said two words to you and didn't wait for a reply. Hard to judge you on that verbose interaction."

"I thought you would judge me on what I didn't do."

I know what he's saying but don't respond immediately. I give his words time to breathe. "You mean not helping the girl?"

Ren bopped his forehead into the handle of his shovel lightly. "I should have helped."

"Maybe," I shrug. "Why do you think so?"

The question drives away Ren's frustration so that confusion can take its place. "Why? It's what I should have done."

"And maybe that's true," I reiterate as well. "It being true doesn't explain why you should have done it. Most actions mean nothing without good reason behind them. So why should you have helped her? Because she's a girl? Because your old man would have wanted you to?"

Ren pauses the conversation and his work to think about that and I join him. Enjoying the respite on my poor abused feet, I'm not in any hurry to rush him.

"Because those boys were being bullies and she hadn't done anything wrong."

"I like that reason," My reply has Ren smiling quietly to himself. "That's about the gist of why I helped. So why didn't you."

Brief was the smile that my words kill dead. "I was scared they'd hurt me."

"Like they were hurting her? That makes sense."

"It… does?"

"Sure it does. The difference between one's intended actions at the outcomes they precipitate are-" I stop myself. I'd started to go full boar because of how articulate Ren is. I've used a few five dollars words already and he's been able to keep up fine. I simplify things in my head before starting back up. "Do you know what the difference between psychology and philosophy is?"

"No?" He answers back with a question in his voice.

I answer it. "Psychology is kind of how we explain why people do things. You didn't stop those three from bullying the girl because you thought they'd hurt you. Trying to avoid pain is probably one of the most human reasons for doing anything. It also happens to be one of the leading psychological reasons people break their philosophical codes."

I don't wait for the obvious question. "If psychology answers why people do things, philosophy tries to answer what people _should_ do. Stopping the bullies from doing something wrong is part of your philosophy that the psychology of trying to avoid pain caused you to abandon. Now you feel crappy, right?"

"Well… yes."

"Then you're fine. You did something against your philosophy — something you think is wrong — and you feel bad about it because of that. What's the problem?"

Ren looks at me like I'm from Mars. Probably more of an achievement considering I doubt we're on Earth. I really need to look into that. "What's the problem? I didn't help her! I was scared, a coward, and I should have done something." Ren regains his calm near the end after beginning to raise his voice. He's got some impressive self-control for a kid his age.

"With your philosophy, yeah you should have. So do better next time."

"That doesn't fix things."

"Nothing ever will."

Maybe not the best piece of my personal philosophy to hit a kid with. Ren's dejected frown and drawn down eyebrows tell me that. I look for a way to explain myself a smidge more sunnily without compromising my own beliefs.

"You can't go back in time and fix things, right? No matter what you do, nothing changes the fact that you let Nor- let that girl get bullied. There's nothing you can do that changes the choice you made back then."

"But I could find her," Ren suggested. "I could apologize and tell her I'm sorry and ask her to forgive me."

It's my turn to plant my shovel in the ground and leave it there. I turn to my right to face him. "Maybe you should. Maybe that makes her feel better. Maybe you two will become friends because you were a big enough man to apologize. Honestly, that's a good idea you got there."

As much as I mean that, I can't deny I'm also using him. I'm not going to be around Kuroyuri much longer. Setting Nora up with a friend for when I'm gone will do something to ease my conscience about leaving her.

I hate to do it to him like this… just as Ren is starting to get a bit optimistic I hit him with it. "But does that change how you feel?"

"What do you mean?"

"Does her accepting your apology change anything for you? It makes you both feel better, that's true. Does that stop you from feeling bad about leaving her alone like that the first time?"

I wait out the silence as a cool breeze blows through the town. A few minutes later the refreshing wind carries his answer to me. "No."

"Yeah, that's how I feel too," I chuckle. No need to get all doom and gloom about this. "And that's a good thing in my opinion. You don't want to let go of that feeling."

"I'm pretty sure I do."

That makes me snort. Kid has some sass. "You really don't. That icky feeling is going to be the weapon of your philosophy. If you don't want to make the same mistake twice, keep it alive and well in some back corner of your mind."

Ren doesn't look at me like he's failing to understand. I wish that were the case because he's looking at me like I'm an idiot. "You want me to keep feeling bad?"

"Distantly bad," I clarify. "Not something on your mind all the time. More something that you remember if you ever see someone who needs your help again. That negative feeling will help you avoid breaking your philosophy again."

"Mother says that I shouldn't hold onto negative thoughts. I must learn to let them go."

"And that's her philosophy that she's welcome to have. Mine's really the opposite of that, actually; I don't think people hold onto enough of the right negativity."

Heaven forbid, why did I agree to this talk? I'm telling a ten-year-old that maybe he shouldn't listen to his mother. I'm going to hell for this.

"Can you explain?"

I blink owlishly. Ren is looking at me with a determination that doesn't quite look right on such a childish face. It has a maturity to it.

I can't say no to someone who honestly wants to know why I believe what I believe. "People hold onto a lot of pointless regrets that accomplish nothing. Keeping track of our pointful regrets is how we avoid repeating mistakes. Not studying history and being doomed to repeat it and all that, our own problems are the same way. Keeping track of important mistakes lets us keep an eye out for trends — underlying reasons we keep making similar mistakes. Not wanting to get hurt might have stopped you from helping that girl today, but five years from now it might stop you from going to the gym."

"So you hold onto your pain instead of letting it go."

Very much so. "Certain pains. Letting go of too many mistakes is a problem because…" I rack my brain for an explanation that will make sense to him. "Do you know what a hermit crab is?"

"A type of crab?"

"Technically true," I grin at him. He's a clever bastard. "It's a crab that doesn't have a shell around it, but finds shells to take for their own on the ocean floor. As they grow bigger they need to find a bigger shell to live in. Make sense?"

Ren nods. "A man I knew," Technically a rabbi. "Once complained about how people took too much medicine. Don't look at me like that," I jab a finger at Ren's skeptical face. "He didn't mean medicine was bad or that we shouldn't take it ever. What he was getting at was that people were taking medicine for too mundane of things. If they got a headache after staring at a screen for hours, they'd take a pill to make it go away. If their feet hurt from standing too long they'd rub something on it and make the pain go away. Daily and ordinary pains being managed by medication is what he didn't like."

"That's his philosophy."

I nod.

"Why didn't he like it?"

Straight and to the point this kid. I've met adults who can't hold a conversation this well. "That's where the hermit crab comes in. The man said that if the hermit crab medicated itself like we did, it would never change its shell. It would continue to grow and grow oblivious to the pain caused by its shell being too small because of the medicated haze until eventually the shell punctured a hole in its body and the crab died. Sort of gruesome, I know."

"And if the crab had felt pain it would have known to change its shell."

"That's the point he was trying to make," Christ, I can't get over how clever this kid is. He's growing on me pretty fast. "Seeing the doctor is a good thing. Trying to mute all your pain isn't. My feet hurting right now is my body's way of telling me I need to take it easy on them. If I want to ignore that, the man might say that pain is the price I pay. Mind you, if someone offered me a pill for that right now you can be sure I'd ask for five."

"Would that be against your philosophy?"

"Maybe," I admit. "I'm not as firm as that guy, but I'm usually the type to solve temptation by removing it. Not the best at turning it down when offered."

"Father says many things about refusing temptation."

"Oh really? Like what?"

Ren and I continue to wax philosophical while sprinkling in a few shovels of dirt here and there as we go. Like I said, removing temptation is much more my style.

Give me someone to talk philosophical shop with like this? No way am I refusing.

* * *

When all was said and done at the Lie household I'd have to say I enjoyed myself. Ren was a smart kid and soaked everything I said up like a sponge. His father had been right about putting the two of us together. Worked like a charm.

As the sun begins to set before my eyes, I move down to the next item on my list. A trap of my own making that I patently refuse to stick my foot in. No matter how cute.

The machine-gun pace of tiny footsteps clanking on the stone is my only notice that I've been spotted. By the time I gather the wherewithal to turn my head left, a girl caked in dirt is looking up at me with the purest eyes, a moldy loaf of bread in one hand and a can of soup in the other.

"Evening, Nora."

"You came…?" She asked breathily, winded from her mad sprint over. She was acting like it was something difficult to believe I was here.

I draw an x over my heart the same as before. "I promised, didn't I?"

The poor girl beams at me so radiantly I have to look away. Her euphoric happiness over such a simple promise is heartbreaking. I'm some random guy who offered to heat her up a can of soup later and then kept his word. What kind of life has she lived to look at me like I'm walking on water.

We don't converse as I lead the way out of Kuroyuri. If I thought the lone guard didn't give a shit about me arriving, he's doing his damndest to prove there is nothing but depth to his vast reserves of apathy. What's the point of having a gate guard if you're not going to screen people entering the town? A defense against raiding parties? They didn't check me for weapons, so it stands to reason any bandits could slowly filter into town and then take it from the inside. Maybe that's because I look like a kid and they normally screen adults?

The guards posted at each town mean something that I can't figure out. The best thing I can do is ask him tomorrow morning and weather whatever weird looks he might give me

Once we're outside the town, I don't wander far from the main gate. My feet are already plotting regicide against my ruling brain, though that's not the only reason. I'm going to assume the guard is here for a reason and I should be prepared to flee to the city gate if necessary.

"Hmmm… this looks nice and flat," I decide on a somewhat circular patch of dirt housed within the mainly grassy field. Less likely I'll set what little plains this town has on fire.

Having decided where we'll be having our canned soup cookout, I can finally shrug the cumbersome load off my back. Part of me wants to let it land so I can hear that satisfying thud to signal the end of the day. The part that wins is the one that catches the pack right before it touches the ground. Too many valuables. Now… time to get that fire started.

"Could you get some firewood while I set things up?" I ask Nora.

Her first instinct is to light up like a Christmas tree and immediately answer yes. That happy expression quickly turns to one of puzzlement as she looks to the soup in her left hand and her bread in the other.

I unzip the second compartment of my pack and withdraw one of my tarps. It's been folded into oblivion and zip-tied so it wouldn't explode back open. I found a stash of them packed in one of the many subpockets. From there I take out a pocket knife from the same compartment and cut the cord before tossing it to Nora. She tries to catch it even with both hands full. I hear it plop on the ground without giving it a second thought.

"Sorry…"

I roll my eyes and snort. "I'm going to assume you're not apologizing for dropping the thing that's purpose is being on the ground."

"It is?"

I'm honestly taken aback by that. Poor girl probably doesn't even know what a tarp is. Why would she? The first time I used one was camping with my father. If I'd never used it then, or learned it in school, or any of the other luxuries I'd had access to that she most certainly hasn't, where would I have learned what a tarp is?

What kind of animal would make fun of her for that? "It is," I adopt my most patient teaching tone normally reserved for that hellish time when seventy-year-olds tried to upgrade to the non-touch version of Windows Eight. "If you unfold that and place it on the ground, we'll have somewhere to sit down while we eat."

"What's wrong with the ground?"

"Bugs and dirt."

"What's wrong with bugs and dirt?" She asks, doing what I'd asked anyways.

We're going to be here forever if this keeps up. I pull a paper plate from my pack and place it on the tarp next to her. I'd thought Donna and Leo would have given me real plates, but I'm grateful they didn't. The few times I needed a plate I'd been grateful to just ditch it in the woods and let nature take its course.

"With the tarp down we can put that bread on a plate. Then you can go look for some wood."

Nora does not care for that suggestion at all. Her facial features are having a civil war as she's deciding how she's going to react. Adorable as it is, I'm bushed after a long day of walking and working after an entire week of walking and walking. I'm going to expedite this by any means necessary.

"I'm not going to steal your bread."

Her seafoam eyes narrow. "What about my soup?"

"The soup I gave you?"

"Yeah…" She continues to eye me suspiciously.

"Christ on a popsicle stick, get the firewood woman."

"Hnnnnn…" She lets out a high pitch whine. "Fine. Only if you promise not to take my stuff."

"I literally just said-"

"Promise?"

"... Fine. I promise."

This is ridiculous. And yet, somehow, she _still_ doesn't look content. The longer I wait for her to get over her constipation or whatever else could possibly be causing her to look as she does, the more she adopts a truly ferocious pout. I'd be happy to do something about that if I knew what was causing said pout in the first place.

Looking grumpy as can be, Nora brings her finger to make a small x over the wrong side of her chest.

"Cross my heart."

The frown disappears like it had never been there in the first place. "'Kay!" Nora says as she skips off to the tree line.

My delegation of that task is not so much a factor of my laziness as is the division between mindless and slightly less mindless labor. The second pouch proves once again to be the resting place of camping supplies as I withdraw what a few metal sticks. Except they're not mere sticks of metal… they're sticks of metal that screw together!

I combine all the sticks I have into three bigger sticks, slap a doodad at the top to hold them all together, and dangle a small chain from my freshly assembled portable tripod. I've used one of these a grand total of once in my entire life. Figuring out what the hell these pieces assembled into the first time I'd taken inventory of my supplies was a longer process than I care to admit.

By the time I'm fastening each end of the chain to the pot handles, Nora has brought several armfuls of twigs and sizeable branches. Good enough to heat a can of soup if little else.

I didn't bother with the tedium of setting up a proper core for the fire. I'm heating up food, not preparing Gondor's beacon. The process of making soup turned out to be more complicated than I thought. This was primarily because opening the can and pouring it into the pot while Nora was gone has her ready to launch an inquisition. It took longer than should have been necessary to understand what the heck she was going on about. Nora has somehow thought I would heat the soup in the can itself.

"What the heck did you think the pot was for?"

"To put the can in."

Answers like that were becoming more commonplace the longer I interacted with this girl. I've given up on being surprised and have started moving straight to explaining things.

"Oooh!" Nora gasps with childish glee. She's far too close to the fire from a safety standpoint. I've already warned her about that... _twice_. Whatever, I'm not her dad. "I saw a bubble in the soup!"

"That means it's starting to boil." I explain more than a bit exhaustedly. Ren had really tired out my explanations for the day.

"Because of the fire? Soup boils when it gets hot?"

Moments like that make it worth explaining things to her. She's not all that clever, but she is curious. People who always have food in the fridge can get worse hunger pangs for skipping a single meal than those who have been fasting for days. She probably isn't used to having someone who will answer her questions like this.

"Is the wood boiling?"

A quick chuckle escapes without my consent. I've always been apathetic towards the homeless and here I am being played like a fiddle by Nora's earnest curiosity. "No, it's not. Wood doesn't boil."

"Why not?"

"The three states of matter refer to primarily pure elements or simple compounds. It doesn't work for wood because that's a complex compound of… you don't even know what an element is, do you?"

"Yeah-huh! That's like when a dragon breathes fire! Fire's the element!"

My need to correct that woefully wrong concept is how I dig myself the hole of explaining elements, compounds, and the three states of matter.

"So elements are the simple things." Nora starts. She's abandoned her hazardous post almost directly atop of the fire for a more contemplative stance sitting on the tarp.

"Yes…" I hold my breath.

"And compounds are some simple things smooshed together."

"Basically…" Almost there.

"And complex compounds are compounds smooshed together?"

"More or less…" Please God, let this be over.

"Then why is the soup boiling?!"

"... Huh?"

"Its got carrots and noodles and chicken and tasty water. That means soup is a comp… complicated… one of those super compounds!" Nora gives up on remembering the word.

I'm about ready to give up on life as I try once more. "But it's not the whole soup that's boiling. It's only the broth- the tasty water."

With the soup finishing up, I continue to answer whatever silly questions Nora has while I search my bag for a towel and a bowl. I only have a single plastic bowl in contrast to the twentyish paper plates. I'm guessing that's because paper bowls would lose their form in my dense pack, though I can't really say for certain. I'd have to ask Donna if I ever see her again...

"I don't get it."

I offer her a shrug as I very carefully and even more slowly tilt the pot with one hand and pour its contents into the bowl in my other. "I can't say I understand it either."

"We burned all the sticks. No more sticks," Nora held open her dirty hands to show that there was, of course, no more wood for the dying fire. "They're all gone."

"Sure, the solid form of the sticks is gone, but the compounds that made them have changed into a gas… I think. Matter can't be created or destroyed. That's a rule."

"It's a dumb rule."

"Yeah, well when you become queen you can make all the rules you want. Careful, it's hot."

Nora's eyes lit up as she leans her body forward. She accepts the silverish spoon and plastic bowl of soup. I panic as it looks like she's going to drop the hot bowl which is doing little to insulate her hand from the heat. Nora's grip holds true as she winces through the pain, setting the bowl carefully on the tarp next to her before shaking her hand off and sucking on one of her fingers.

It's incredible to see a kid cherish food like that. Pain is a more acceptable outcome than sacrificing food in Nora's world. I shouldn't be that surprised. I've seen her do it once before when the boys attacked her. Her first instinct was to protect the bread she'd dropped above her own body.

"What's a queen?" Nora reclaims my attention between her staring contest with a spoonful of soup. Her desire to devour the salty goodness in the bowl is warring with her tongue's desire to not be burnt to death.

"I'd say that depends on the queen. Loosely put, a queen is something like an absolute ruler. Everyone has to listen to all the rules she makes. No matter how dumb they are. They wear fancy dresses, live in castles, and-"

"How can I become a queen!?"

That gets a chuckle out of me. Content that the lingering embers of the fire aren't going to spark any fires, I take a seat next to Nora on the tarp. "Easiest way would be to marry a prince. Any princes in these parts?"

"I donno. If there is one I can find him and make him marry me and then I can live in a castle?"

"You got it."

Nora hums in thought, though she's not willing to stop eating her soup while doing so. The young girl makes thought bubbles into the broth in her spoon. "Any other way I can be queen?"

"Marriage or blood. Take your pick."

"I can fight a queen for her queenness?!"

"No," I flatly deny. Nora's pout is fearsome, though not enough to make me entertain her thoughts of regicide. "I mean if your parents are royalty you would be too… do you know anything about your parents, Nora?"

"No." She answers simply.

I'm not sure where to take the conversation from there. Her parents hadn't died so far as she knew or was willing to tell me. That meant she was probably abandoned. I'm not sure-

"I used to think about my parents a whole bunch," Nora continues unprompted. Her gaze lingers downward to the soup in her bowl. "I mean, everyone else has parents. Where are mine? Are they lost? Did I need to pick them up at the parent store but I never went? I donno… I don't think there is a parent store anymore," Nora sighs as she whisks the noodles around her bowl sullenly. "Then I realized that most people don't have red hair. So maybe Noras just don't have parents. Maybe Remnant has a whole bunch of parentless Noras and we need to start a clubhouse! I saw a bunch of kids making a house in a tree in one town! It was soooo cool! Maybe I need to get all the Noras with no parents and make a big house tree for us all to live in!"

My fucking feels. I've always had difficulty steeling my resolve, clearly, but this is the worst. This four-foot and change girl is sieging the gate of my will with a battering ram constructed of this ungodly combination of innocent charm and tragedy.

Curiosity appears to be my savior. Thinking about one thing to avoid another is a method tried and true by all. Nora has been blowing on the same spoonful of soup for a good minute. She was having difficulty restraining herself from eating it fresh out of the pot.

"Pretty sure that's cooled down enough to eat." I comment as she goes for yet another blow on the spoon of soup.

"Nuh-uh. It's still warm."

"What's wrong with that? I thought you liked hot food."

"I do." Nora answers matter of factly.

"Alright then. Clearly, I'm missing something he-"

I'm interrupted by a spoon being thrust into my face.

"For you." Nora says with what was becoming her signature radiant smile.

This girl is too pure for this world. "It's fine. That soup is yours."

"Because you shared it with me. Now I'm sharing back. Besides…" She gives a little cough and lowers the pitch of her voice. "I don't want this soup now that it's cold. You'll be helping me by taking it off my hands."

This cheeky brat sure knows how to melt a heart.

I eat the spoonful of soup she's presented for me and turn away from that damn smile on her face. She gets way too excited at this silliest things.

"You can leave the bowl when you finish," I tell her as she starts the arduous task of working on that loaf of bread she has. It's so stale that she hasn't managed to break a piece off yet as she continues to gnaw on it. "I'll probably set up here and buy some supplies for the road in the morning."

Her head whips towards me so fast I worry she hurt herself. "You're leaving?"

Bite. The. Bullet. You. Coward. "Early tomorrow," I confirm. I seize the momentum to prevent any potential backpedal from my id. "I'll have to wait for the markets to open up, of course. Plan is to be out of Kuroyuri and onto wherever's next before noon."

"Oh…"

I'm smothering the flames of self-resentment as fast as I can and still the inferno grows. I cannot take care of this girl. I don't have the means in any sense of the word. I don't have the money for that. I don't have the environment to raise her.

 _What does that matter? She can't be any worse off traveling with you than she is now. Could she be poorer than eating moldy bread? Would she truly live worse in your tent than out in the cold?_

That doesn't matter. Even if I could accept those things it doesn't change that I'm not ready for anything like this! She'll be better off on her own.

 _You don't believe that._

I do. I must. I wouldn't be here right now if I didn't.

That argument stands strong enough to silence any further dissent from my treacherous mind. My entire stay in this strange new world has been void of any thoughts on my prior one until now. I made my deal for a reason that's more than good enough to justify keeping Nora a football field's length away from me

"Ummm…" Nora looked at me before immediately lowering her gaze in nervousness. "If you're leaving tomorrow, can we do something tonight?"

"We're already having a four-star cookout. What more could you ask for?" I reply jokingly. Humor is my best weapon against immediately capitulating to anything this ball of sunshine asks for.

"A favor?"

"Does this favor have a name?"

"Uhhh… maybe?"

Instead of responding to her non-answer, I lace my fingers together and stretch my arms above my head. I'm ready to call it for the night and if this kid wants a favor than she can do the heavy lifting of articulating it.

She eventually gets on with the word making if nothing else. "Can you promise to do it first?"

"Hell no."

Whoops. Cursed in front of a kid. Blank checks like that are for complete dumbasses and kids in love — those two being closer to mutually inclusive than exclusive. I'll have to pass on giving those out to anyone ever.

"Awww. Why not?"

"Because I'll decide if I want to do what you ask once you actually do the asking. Now spill or let me go to bed. I've got a schedule to keep."

Nora's face that had been so distrusting and frightened when I met her was now contorting into an animated pout. The way her lip jutted out and her eyes did the whole puppy dog thing really made it a full facial production to look at. Didn't mean I was going to cave in and give her whatever she wanted. She was going to have to ask for it and then _maybe_ I'd consider it. _Maybe_.

* * *

Walking back to Kuroyuri in the dead of night had not been on my to-do list for the day. Find work, do work, leave town, set up camp, eat, sleep. What should have been a straightforward set of tasks has been desecrated by a small and particularly dirty little spanner thrown into its workings.

"How much further?" I ask as if _I'm_ the stereotypical child in this scenario. "I've walked all day and I walked to get to this stupid town too. I'm tired of walking."

"I think it's around here."

"You _think_?"

"I'm pretty sure."

" _Pretty sure?_ "

"Ughh! I'm _pretty sure_ it's around here because I _think_ this is where I met the nice old lady!"

Much as I'd like to complain that this is the kind of thing you commit to memory, I don't think my bitching would add much to the situation. I'm only entertaining the thought because I'm annoyed. At myself, not Nora. This kid is just trying to enjoy a semblance of normalcy now that she's found someone who will indulge her. I'm the one letting both of us get more attached when I know I'm going to have to abandon her in the end.

The white buildings of Kuroyuri are turned grey by the moonlit night. The vibrant red roofs are dulled to that of a dark crimson. There are so few people out that I'm wondering if the town has a curfew. Besides the guard, again, I haven't seen anyone since reentering the town.

"Have you ever done it before?" Nora's question is her way of letting me know I've been silent for too long. She's like a needy puppy that always needs more pets.

"A handful of times, sure."

"So what are we supposed to do?"

I try to think of an answer that's both honest and doesn't create another heap of work for me to do. "Normally you hang out and eat some food, have some fun, and then go to sleep when you're tired."

Nora hums with a note of disappointment. I cede to the pant of my brittle heart and hasten to add a bit more. "But that's not the best part."

"Really?" Nora asks with that same shimmer in her seafoam eyes. "What's the best part?"

"When you wake up, you're still hanging out. So instead of whatever you'd normally do in the morning, you get to have more fun instead. So it's like two hangouts in a row."

"That's amazing! Sleepovers are the best!"

I try to sternly shush her, but my back isn't in it at all. Her previously unnamed favor had been 'to have a sleepover with a friend'. My rational and emotional sides are easily taking the fight over what to do about Nora to the ninth round. I'm justifying this as my last act of kindness before I dip out to never be heard from again.

"Aha! There- there it is." Nora quiets herself down halfway through.

I assume she's referring to this small building pressed up against the outlying walls of the town. I think it's a home, though I can't be certain with Kuroyuri's nigh identical architecture for all buildings. Nora takes off towards it, her little shoes clopping against the stone walkway that turns to dirt right near the edge of the town's border. There's a little nook between the back of the house and the wall not more than four feet long.

She tries to tell me something that I can't hear since she pulled so far ahead of me and is finally being considerate of the time of night. Ten seconds later when I catch up, she tries again. "The old lady said I could sleep back here as long as no one noticed."

That wouldn't be hard to do. This space between the white building and white wall isn't being used by the owner of this place or any of the other houses adjacent. It's a small cubby of space within Kuroyuri that its inhabitants have all but forgotten about.

And they let Nora sleep there. I try not to choke on the irony.

"So what now?" Nora asks me. This girl has a talent for breaking me out of my funks. "Do we play a game? What about I spy?"

"The only game we're playing is the sleeping game. First one to fall asleep wins."

"Boooooring."

I roll my eyes, a gesture likely wasted with how dark it is beneath the shadow cast by this roof. Gently dropping my pack to the ground, I follow suit with much less concern. Practically collapsing against the wall of the house I slide down until I'm seated.

"I'll tell you what. Since you're supposed to have fun when you wake up from a sleepover, we can play some I spy in the morning."

"Ok."

Huh. I'd already started preparing to promise it to her, but Nora's taking it at face value. I mean, she should. It's not worth breaking my word over. It's more that she's accepting that at some level that surprises me.

Now that we're finally winding down, I dig through my pack for my sleeping back. This thing had been one of the bigger disasters so far. Not knowing how to tightly bind the roll properly, I'd spent most mornings trying to find a way to condense it down so I could barely fit it into the compartment of my pack. It was so bad that jimmying it out of the pack was something of an ordeal itself.

"Is that a sleeping bag?" Nora, who'd been wide-eyed the entire time asked me.

"Got it in one. I figured we could share it to keep warm."

"Like both get inside?"

"No," I reject her with haste. The FBI can politely pass me over, thank you very much. "You can unzip these and use them like a blanket."

"How?"

The war in my head picks back up as I show Nora how to unzip the bag. The two of us could be sleeping in Leo's tent right now instead of pressed up against this building like a couple of homeless orphans. That's just it though; Nora _is_ a homeless orphan. Letting her into my tent just to kick her out the next day is irresponsible, not to mention cruel. I'm already being weak by letting both of us get more attached with this little sleepover. It's just…

How could I say no?

 _"Ummm… well Nora's never had any friends to have a sleepover with. Could you…?"_

Philosophy often fails in the face of psychology. With philosophy standing as the platonic form of what we should do in any given situation, psychology directs its questions towards why we make the choices we do, even in spite of our philosophy. Spending time with Nora is giving her false hope that there will be more sleepovers in the future. There will not be. I refuse to take care of her because I doubt that I can even take care of myself. As I didn't blame Donna and Leo for not helping me when they needed all hands bailing out the Rest, I know that I'm bearing no philosophical blame for rejecting Nora on the same basis.

But the impact psychologically of seeing a poor wounded animal that needs your help, even when you have precious little to offer, exists in spite of those beliefs. The compulsion to help exists despite my moral imperative not to.

"Wait a second! Why this side?" Nora asks me, her small body covered by what is now a blanket.

Since I have no idea what she's talking about, I quietly assess for three seconds. Taking some time to try and understand before saying that you don't is valuable as a tool in diagnostics as well as interpersonal relations. Those three seconds let me figure out why the little miss is having a tizzy. "I'm not pointing the fuzzy side towards the dirty ground. Do you know how much of a pain sleeping bags are to wash?"

"Pleeeeaaase?"

"No."

"PLEEEEEAAAAAAASE?"

"You can be grateful for the nylon side or I can take my sleeping bag back."

Nora actually pauses to think for awhile. "... Fiiiine."

I really have been spoiling her too much. Plants grow towards the sunlight and people aren't much different. Tempering her expectations with denial now will make tomorrow easier. For now, the two of us are leaning back against the wall of the building, watching a star-filled sky beautifully shining thanks to Kuroyuri's lack of streetlight. My pack is joining us beneath the blanket and between the two of us both for theft prevention and as a barrier. The bulky bag serves as a physical wall to reinforce my barely standing mental barriers.

The sweet and gentle mistress known as sleep is benevolently enveloping me in her warmth when the precocious miss on my right promptly shoos her away. "Do you have parents?"

Nora bats me a pop fly that I've got the sneaking suspicion will find a way to magically curve into the left field. "I do and they're fine. Happily growing old together."

"Do you miss them?"

The ball is veering left. "I haven't had much time to think about that, to be honest. I probably do. Been too busy to give anything like that much of a thought."

And if I'm being honest, why would I? Deals with dream demons aren't something that content people make. This uncertainty of how I'm going to survive is pressing enough that it mutes the more existential thoughts. Is that why I turned Leo and Donna down? I don't know…

Nora turned to me, her sea-green eyes watery. "Could I come with you?"

And the pop fly has somehow zoomed over to foul ball territory. Flag on the play. Doesn't matter that I can't connect the dots of how we went from talking about my parents to this. We're here. Now I've got to give her the only answer I can.

"Sorry, Nora… you can't."

"That's okay. I figured."

What? I'd expected tears, denial, _something_. Her easy acceptance befuddles me.

I don't get a chance to ask why before she explains. "I've met really nice people who helped me before. Like the lady who let me sleep here or the shopping grandpa who gave me my shirt," Nora lowered the covers and pointed to the pink hearted shirt. "I told him I like pink and he gave me the same face you did. He didn't want me either…"

"It's nothing to do with you, Nora," I hasten to assure her.

"Then can I come?" She pleads with me. "I'm really helpful and good at finding stuff. I found that loaf of bread. You saw it! If I can keep finding bread and you can keep sharing soup and then we'll always have soup and bread!"

"Nora…"

"And you can make the soup hot with the pot and I can blow on all your soup to make it cold again!"

What the hell am I supposed to say? I can't take her in. I can not do it!

"And-and I c-can," I can hear the watery sounds of tears that I can't see in this darkness. "I can d-do lots of stuff and be real-"

"OI, KEEP IT DOWN OUT THERE OR YOU CAN FIND SOMEWHERE ELSE TO SLEEP!" An elderly lady screams from inside the house.

I jerk and slam the back of my head into the wall. Fucking ow! That interruption, timely as it was, scared the shit out of me. Nora too. The girl went from bawling to totally silent in a heartbeat. I had to check my own heart to see if I still had one after doing that to her. What that interruption did create was an opportunity.

Scummy as it makes me feel, I leap to seize it. "It's nothing to do with you Nora. It's my fault."

"Y-your fault?" She's calmed down a little but her voice is still choked up.

"I've got a whole heap of problems that I need to figure out for myself. I can't care for you or anyone else until I do. So it's not your fault, you see, it's mine."

"Ok…" She accepts my words with blind faith. It twists me into knots doing this to her, but I'm not lying. I'm not good for anyone right now. Not Donna, not Leo, and certainly not this precious thing. I'm thinking the battle is over when Nora launches a final and very foreseeable salvo that still manages to blindside me. "What about later? Can we be friends then?"

"Dummy. I'm already your friend," I boop her on the nose like I did when we met earlier today. "But sure. If we meet somewhere down the road then maybe we can travel together then."

"You promise?"

"Promise." And this time I truly cross my heart and hope to die if I'm lying. Nora doesn't deserve this. She's just a kid without any family. How the hell has no one stepped up?

"Ok."

With that final acceptance, Nora topples over like a puppet whose strings have been cut, her body splaying over my pack and her head resting on my arm. In that blink of an eye this ball of energy is snoring gently into my body, her orange hair likely making the clothes I've worked all day in somehow dirtier.

Sleep doesn't take long to offer up her warm embrace to me as well. I really should prop Nora up on her own… but whatever. Sleep sounds too good and I can't be bothered.

That's the only reason…

…

…

I wake up to an alarm clock and a sense of clarity washes over me. I was right that first day, wasn't I? This was all some weird lucid dream. And then I fade away, and way, and away…

And then something pulls me back. I still feel Nora's warmth on my arm. I don't recognize that alarm, either.

"We told you kids to be quiet!" A woman shouts from within the house. "That's it! I want the both of you out of here and-"

Invoking someone's ire has my brain booting up and out of sleep mode. I could faintly hear the sound of her moving through her house. Her voice cut off as soon as she opened the door. I've gently placed Nora's head on my pack as I get up to meet her, synapses still struggling to fire under the weight of my exhaustion.

It's her piercing shriek combined with some roaring sound that flips me into adrenaline-fueled panic. It's the sploshing sound of liquid combined with a squelching noise I know not the origin of that has me peering carefully around the corner.

A black beast stands over the old lady's recently made corpse. Her vocal cords along with whatever other organs are housed in the throat have been ripped from her throat and now being swallowed into the black beast's bloody maw. The distraction of devouring its kill is probably the only reason it didn't see me peeking. I've already hidden behind the wall once again.

That alarm that had woken me wasn't a clock. It was a raid siren.

I shake Nora awake while firmly cupping her mouth with my other hand. The girl stirs reluctantly at first, but her awakening is hastened when she realizes I'm smothering her.

"Be quiet. Something's happened. We need to go."

Go where? I've no clue. Somewhere less open, at least. I don't want us on the open streets right now. When wild animals attack it's better to hide than run.

Either driven by her faith in me or the obvious panic I'm showing, Nora nods and grabs my hand. I help her quietly get out from the sleeping blanket and sling the pack over my shoulder. I can buy another roll, but my money and everything else is in this pack.

"Stay low. Don't make noise. Follow me."

Nora follows my lead and we quickly move towards the other side of the building. Peering past the wall, I see the coast is clear and lightly tug her forward as I start moving. With the alley between the two houses clear, I lead us to the door to see if it'll open. A quick and quiet tug of the knob shows it's locked and I don't dare knock for fear of attracting the beast.

Except it's not just the one beast. Around the next corner, I find another one stalking through the alleys. I flatten my body against the brown wall next to me, willing myself to go inside it. A firm hand on Nora's chest ensures she does the same. Soon the beast in front of us slinks off, yet I can hear the first one stirring from the ecstasy of its kill behind us.

Escorting Nora as best I can, we try door after door to find them all locked. Finally, we reach a brown house where I spy movement through the window. The door is even slightly ajar!... That could be very good or very _very_ bad.

The squelching of flesh I'm learning to recognize has me shepherding Nora away as quick as our tiny feet can carry us.

At this point, I'm desperate. Hyperventilating, at my wit's end, and souped up on so much adrenaline that I can't figure out if I'm thinking more clearly than I ever have or just totally lost it. Fires have somehow begun igniting throughout the town, painting the sky red while these beasts do the same to the ground. The pure white stones that once showed the town's wealth now served as the canvas for blood and viscera. Another corpse, a child, lies still down the next alley I'm scouting. We need to find somewhere to hide. Now. Before that becomes us.

A sound cuts through that thought. It cuts through the screaming and the crackling conflagrations spreading through the town. It cuts through my heart that I swear is beating inside my head. The sound isn't loud, it shouldn't even be threatening.

But it is.

Clop clop clop clop.

The soft clap of hooves on stone pierces the cacophony with quiet aplomb. The meandering pace confirms it as hostile. Any innocent mare would have fled into the night by now. This unseen creature's steps take it further into the heart of the town.

Putting a hand on Nora once more, I stop us to peep at the newest threat. The amalgamation I see is a construct of pure horror. What first looks to be a black shadowy horse carrying a similarly colored rider turns out to be one singular demon. The human torso protrudes out of the horse's back. So dominating is its visage that I almost fail to notice the people of Kuroyuri are fleeing from it as fast as they can. The creature does not move to chase them at anything more than its plodding walk.

Clop clop clop clop.

Tearing my eyes from mesmerizing horror, I look for an avenue of safe passage. I find one. A house with a vaulted floor invites me in. The passage between house and earth is so narrow that I doubt these creatures could even fit in there. It's the first time I've ever been grateful for this childish size since arriving here. The only problem is…

Clop clop clop clop.

We're close to the town square and the house is across the street the horse demon has taken for its own. Do we cross? We're dead if it sees us, I feel it in my bones. Do we stay? The growling and howling all around says that plan is destined to fail. It feels like the majority of the town has taken to the square, fleeing in the quickest path to the town gate. Do we join them?

Clop clop clop clop.

"Nora," I whisper directly into her ear so what little volume I dare give my words can be heard. "We're going to make a break for that house and hide underneath it. Get ready to run."

She's shivering so hard I think she's having a seizure. I can't tell if the movement of her head is a nod or a convulsion of fear. Seeing her like this is why I can stay focused. Always been better when someone needs me.

"Nora, I'm going to do my best to keep you safe, but you've got to trust me."

She continues to shake like a leaf in the wind. A fallen man has caught the attention of the demon. We must capitalize on the distraction.

"Nora," I stare into her terror-filled eyes and as deep into her soul as I can. "I promise you'll be okay as long as you follow me. We're going now."

I cross my heart and russle her hair. The two combined pull her mind out of the abyss of fear and she finally gives me a nod. Her trust in me outweighs her fear in that instant. I do one last scan.

Then we book it.

I haul enough ass for both of us in a mad sprint to the house. I can hear Nora gasp when we pass the dead child and run through a thin layer of his blood spread on the cobbled stone. I yank her towards the house again and I don't slow down when I reach it. Pulling off a slide that would make Jackie Robinson proud, I clear the underside of the home, my pack barely avoiding the building as I do so. Nora joins me with a face-first dive owing to me dragging her the entire way. I catch the girl against my chest and hug her close.

"We did it. You're fine."

Her tremoring body conveys its fear all the more clearly as it's pressed against me. I hear her starting to sob and cut her off.

"We're safe now so long as we stay quiet. Don't make a sound and nothing will happen. I promise."

Like I've waved a magic wand and cast a spell, Nora starts to calm down. I'm giving myself a moral waiver with my lying clause. Shutting up and hiding out is our best chance for survival, even if it's nowhere near guaranteed.

And if these monsters do make a liar out of me then I won't have to see the betrayed look on her face for very long.

Twenty seconds. That's all the time I'm given to hope before something squeezes its way underneath the house. My fight or flight doesn't even kick in as I hear it from behind because I know we're doomed.

… or not?

"Ren!?"

The small boy looks even worse than Nora did. His fear is being forced to share with the despair and disappointment he showed at the alley times a thousand.

"M-m-my father…" The wreck of a child points to where he came from.

I shimmy over to his side of the house's underbelly and look — a feat made all the more difficult by Nora categorically refusing to let go of me. What I see brings a terrible clarity to what he's feeling. His father is firing his bow at the horse demon as it slowly advances in him in a last stand that's desperation is matched only by its futility. He limps backward on an injured leg as the demon marches on him without regard to the arrows protruding from its human section.

Clop clop… clop… clop…..

The sound of its hoofsteps slows to a crawl before ceasing entirely. The demon isn't celebrating its kill. It hasn't given up or gotten distracted. It has stopped moving.

As has everything else.

Flames are frozen in place on buildings. Fleeing townspeople turned to sculptures of unmoving flesh and bone. No smoke billows and no stars twinkle. Nothing moves save my heart in my chest and the small girl tucked into it. I turn to check on her… except I don't. I continue to observe the town, almost admiring the destruction. I must say that I do find such wantonness unsavory. With his dominion over dark and shadow, he chooses to create these grotesqueries? How droll.

A single brush of this hand sends the dirt and grime on this pauper's ensemble fleeing not unlike these poor peasants. While I'm not so vain as to necessitate a complete change of ensemble, conducting my business in this state of disrepair is nothing short of unacceptable. I need not apologize for being a man of exacting standards.

I would so adore the opportunity to skip right unto business, yet present predicaments don't properly permit me. I will need to address the grimy and quivering orphan threatening to make a mess of my decently dusted duds.

"Nora. Would you be a dear and release me?"

The girl stills in my grasp and I feel her hitherto hammering heart hit home harder. The wretched girl looks into my eyes and I into hers.

She hurls herself away from me then and there.

Children are so blessedly aware in a way those with a few more years under their belts can't manage to appreciate. Rules hold no sway. They see what is for they lack the bias of knowing what couldn't be. Or, more to this particular point, the girl sees what I'm not.

"You have my gratitude." I thank her. And then I snap.

The girl falls in with the rest of the frozen scenery. She's his first failing since coming here. He should have left her content with her can of cold soup and infested bread. Neither here nor there, I suppose. None of my business.

I turn to the one who is.

Two taps on the little boy's shoulder and he joins me. Previously immobile pink eyes dart around, find their father, and begin to relay the simply stationary scenery to a mind that fails to comprehend. My ability to sustain this purgatory indefinitely does not mean I have a desire to, as he would likely say. A man of capabilities he resents yet relies on every day.

Why look at that. I'm musing with the best of them.

Taking one's sweet time does have repercussions. "W-what's going on?"

The boy's face is too busy being occupied by terror to make much room for confusion, though it does try its best. I've no desire to indulge the thousand questions a child might ask. Simply listening to the previous one was more than I could bear. I will settle for some small gratitude that the boy did not offer me a distraction, but a segue.

"Why, Little Lie, I don't want you to cry, but looking on out there is something I spy. It looks to me like your father will die."

"He told me to run…"

"Of course, Little Lie. I know I shouldn't pry, but that gash on his leg tells me he isn't so spry. Knowing his end was increasingly nigh, he let loose his son and then told him to fly."

The boy falters. "I d-don't understand what you're saying."

"I don't mean to be wry when I sigh and reply that although things have gone almost far too awry, should you wish to defy you and your father's goodbye, I can hereby decry — that is, should you rely — this state of affairs if I were your ally. For I am no mere passerby, but one who is known to mollify death when one's luck has run impossibly dry."

And so I sigh. "But should you fail to understand why, suffice it to say that one such as I can shepherd your father from death should I try. So, Little Lie, you need not be shy. Why try and justify your father's demise when I can prevent it… for a price."

"You… you can save Father?"

"Aye."

"You will?!" The boy's eyes practically pop out of his skull.

I respond with a deep bassy laugh. "Much like those boys from the alley before, the difference between can and will you don't have a mind for. For although the doorman exists to open the door, a grease for the palms is expected therefore it's time for your offer. I won't let you implore. What I require is for you now to even the score. I offer your father's life and a great many more. So what will you give me to open this door?"

"What… will I do?" The boys asks, confused.

"You're ruining my fun, Little Lie," I finally relent. I've had my fun. "I do suppose one must be direct when dealing with children. So let me ask you, Little Lie."

"Do you want to make a deal?"

* * *

 ** _This was a fun chapter to write for the most part. Rooster Teeth did a really good job capturing Nora's very believable orphan mannerisms in the brief flashbacks we saw of Kuroyuri. I don't want the story to get bogged down by too much teach-orphan-to-human distrust issues, so I've written her in such a way that she's slow to trust._**

 ** _Ren was shown to be clever and a bit sassy as a kid. His canon lack of personality is probably more of a self-defense mechanism to his trauma. I look forward to playing with his character as well._**

 ** _It's 7 AM and I'm tired. I'd say more otherwise, but I wanted to publish this as you guys were getting up. Hope you enjoyed. Old Fox coming on the anniversary of its last update. Notice only going out to the people who read this story and patrons because I appreciate you all. Ty ty._**


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